There aren't a lot of sure things when it comes to the Oscars but one thing we can probably count on is The Lego Movie winning Best Animated Feature. Credit to Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who have proved time and time again how to make the most out of familiar properties. The question is whether they can replicate that success with The Lego Movie 2, which they've revealed to Empire will take place four years after the last film...
Miller: "Well, I don’t want to give you spoilers, but we were really interested in what happens to that boy who’s in the meta story in the first movie when he’s four years older. When he’s an adolescent how does that change his point of view?"
Although the duo proved they can handle sequels just fine with 22 Jump Street, they won't be returning to direct The Lego Movie 2. Instead they will write the screenplay while handing the directing duties to someone else, likely Chris McKay who was in charge of the first film's animation. Lord and Miller were asked about the storyline's progress as well as their reasons for stepping down as directors...
Lord: “We worried we didn’t have enough time. Luckily, [Chris] McKay and Jared [Stern] and Michelle [Morgan] all worked on the movie a bit in our absence and really cracked the beginnings of a story and got us really excited; excited enough to write it. We should be writing right now. We’ve opened a Final Draft document and titled it. I mean, that’s really the hardest part. And we’ve chosen the formatting. That is all that’s happened so far. We’ve been outlining a bunch.”
At this point we have every reason to believe The Lego Movie's sequel will be another smash hit. Lord and Miller have yet to let us down, and hopefully the expanding Lego franchise won't get in their way creatively. There will be more than enough time for them to map things out as The Lego Movie 2 doesn't arrive until May 25th 2018. It will be preceded by a Ninjago film on September 23rd 2016 and a Lego Batman movie on May 26th 2017.
