The Hollywood Reporter have announced that the upcoming Lego movie project now officially has its directors’ chair filled. Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs helmers Phil Lord and Chris Miller are currently locked in final negotiations to write and direct the movie for Warner Brothers and producers Dan Lin and Roy Lee. The pair are currently developing the big-screen adaptation of Johnny Depp’s breakout TV vehicle 21 Jump Street with Jonah Hill (which Hill had initially somewhat playfully called a “R-rated, insane, Bad Boys-meets-John Hughes-type movie” to be helmed by Rob Zombie). The directing duo will set down the first building blocks after completing on Hill’s 21 Jump Street, and with that project set for release during August of 2011, it looks like 2012 will be the year for Lego to finally hit the big screen.
Previously, reports had The Lies of Locke Lamora and Hotel Translyvania writers Kevin and Dan Hageman attached to script the project, which as early as last Autumn was being suggested as a family comedy mixing both live action and animation. It is not yet clear whether the Cloudy pair will be adding their own treatment to the Hagemans’ original script idea, but The Hollywood Reporter announcement implies that the pair’s artistic vision, and the way they developed Cloudy was very important to the success of their pitch at the Lego convention in Fremont (called Bricks By The Bay magically):
One winning component that convinced Lego and Warners that the duo was up to the task was their work on Cloudy. They took a 32-page book, developed a story and characters and used their unique sense of humor to turn it into a family movie that also played to adults. The 3D animated adaptation of the children’s classic book grossed more than $243 million worldwide and garnered numerous nominations last awards season.
If it’s the directors’ adaptation skills that have impressed Warners and Lego, perhaps the Hagemans are indeed still on board. Regardless of that, Lego will have an impressive directorial team in place provided they dont hit any snags: the work they did on Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs was extremely impressive, and having it considered alongside Pixar projects in terms of success can only be further testament to that. The fact that Cloudy was also considered enough of a bankable project to be released early to the 3D Blu-Ray format before it is even remotely close to being available to mass audiences speaks volumes of how Sony think of the film.
Various producers have already attempted to bring a Lego movie to screens for years, with nothing concrete ever getting off the ground, besides the various Bionicle projects that are periodically released and the DVD-only release of Tinseltown Toons CGI movie The Adventures of Clutch Powers that came out in February. There is also a whole world of Brickfilms, where movies are translated into lego scenes, but they are fan-made and not officially affiliated, even though some are fantastically professional looking. So, what has got the Danish company on board with this project, having turned things down in the past? Apparently, execs were impressed enough by the Hageman’s ideas, which they have described as having “a fun factor, creativity and that imagination has no boundaries” to get actively involved in the film-making process (Lego exec Jill Wilfert will act as their member on the production team). You have to think the phenomenal success of the Lego tie-in videogame adapations of Batman, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Harry Potter has created a wake that Lego are now happy to bring an official movie into, thanks to those projects giving the company a tangible feel for how a big-screen treatment might basically look.
Limited information exists on the project, though back in December Collider ran an interiew with producer Dan Lin which gave away about as much as we are likely to find out before any official announcement is made:
I don’t want to give away too much about the story just yet until we publicly announce it, but I will tell you what you mentioned…what’s great about Lego is the worlds. There’s all these different worlds. Space, pirates, Viking world, so it allows a director to play in a lot of different worlds. What it also… naturally the toy doesn’t have any characters as you know besides the licensed product, there’s no character. There’s a spaceman but there’s no personality to the spaceman. And that’s intentional because when Lego designs its toys they want you as the player-the child- they want the player to bring and create the character themselves.
So that’s what we’re working on with the movie right now. I would say there are several Lego characteristics that we’re trying to build into the movie. Their company motto is only the best is good enough. So they’ve raised a very high bar for the movie. Something else we’ve talked about with them is never the same toy twice. You know, with Legos you build per the instructions and then you break it apart and build something else on your own with your own creativity. So, for us, Superglue is evil in the world of Lego. It’s all about building what your mind wants you to build, what your imagination allows you to build.
Thanks to the same interview we know that the film-makers won’t be aiming to reinvent the toy’s image by introducing a Tarantino style story arch:
(It will be) most likely PG. It hasn’t been sited but most likely PG. The challenge for us is, as you know, the Lego toys are geared to boys 5 to 12 and we’re trying to make a movie that can appeal to all audiences and so that age up Lego, while still retaining what younger kids love about Lego.
Now, finally, I’m not one for rumours, but curiously, Wikipedia may have inadvertently started off a mini rumour frenzy thanks to including this line about the star of Nickelodeon’s iCarly:
The film starring Nathan Kress portrayed the human owner of Lego.
Obviously, Wikipedia can’t be trusted, thanks to their open-door contributor policy, and the odd past-tense use in the sentence seems to imply that someone has taken the liberty of adding their own details. It hasn’t stopped Kress fans speculating on the fan-forums: if I had to add my own two-penny-worth, the Kress connection would sort of point towards a Small Soldiers style deal with him playing the toys’ owner, Andy-style. But, then this isn’t one of those rumours that looks to have real legs, so speculation is perhaps a little premature.
