It has been 12 years since a movie was released that most fans thought was nothing more than a cash grab to sell more toys. However, what few people expected was that it would end up as an animated masterpiece and the start of a new franchise. It was also shockingly nominated for an Oscar.
For most movies based on toy lines, they only exist to help sell more toys. However, when Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were hired to bring the LEGO brand to the big screen, they had something bigger in mind. They wanted to create something that was a great film and didn’t care if it sold LEGO toys or not.
The LEGO Movie Remains Hollywood’s Best Toy Movie
There are bigger movies based on toys, especially when considering the Transformers franchise is a billion-dollar endeavor. However, when simply looking at the quality of movies based on toy lines, nothing is better than The LEGO Movie, because it takes what people love about the toys and delivers a meaningful story out of it.
Honestly, The LEGO Movie could have been a simple cash grab, throwing LEGO figures on the screen and then selling products to kids whose parents are dragged to the theaters to watch the toys in action. Look at movies with the Care Bears or Trolls as an example of this. The LEGO Movie wanted more.
The LEGO Movie brought popular LEGO characters to the big screen, but it put the main story on the shoulders of two unknowns in Emmet and Wyldstyle. Miller and Lord then refused to dumb the story down for little kids and turned it into something that was both nostalgic and smartly relevant to today’s society.
This was a movie about sharing toys with your kids, and that was shown with the meta moment when it went live action and showed that Lord Business represented a father who was too possessive of his prized LEGOs, and Emmet as the figure who fought for the next generation to actually play with the toys and not just collect them.
It is arguable that The LEGO Movie was beaten by Barbie when it comes to movies based on toys, but there is also the argument that Barbie exists because The LEGO Movie proved toys could be used to tell real stories. If anything, The LEGO Movie stands as the best animated film based on toys, and Barbie is the best live-action movie in the genre.
The LEGO Movie Helped Launch A Massive Franchise
When The LEGO Movie shocked the world with its box office success ($470.7 million on a $60 million budget) and critical acclaim (96% on Rotten Tomatoes), it opened the door for sequels. This didn’t just represent LEGOs getting more movies, but also a new life on streaming services as well.
There was one direct sequel called The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part. While not up to the level of the first film, it was still a great story and refused to dumb things down, wanting to tell a real story with the characters. The LEGO Batman Movie was a brilliant spinoff and delivered a fun film that stands out from other superhero animated flicks.
Finally, there was The LEGO Ninjago Movie, which was based on the popular kids’ television series, and whose existence as a movie is all due to the success of the first The LEGO Movie. The LEGO Ninjago Movie was the only one without great reviews, although the box office also dropped as well.
However, it was more than just animated movie sequels. There was a Unikitty! spinoff series that lasted for three seasons and 104 episodes on Cartoon Network. There were also several shorts, including Emmet’s Holiday Party and Cooking With Alfred.
Outside the franchise, it also made other LEGO movies more successful, with streaming movies based on Scooby-Doo, DC characters, Marvel Comics characters, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, and more released over the years.
There were also four video games based on The LEGO Movie and its spinoffs, although these were also part of the larger overall LEGO video game franchise, which includes Marvel titles. It also received LEGO Dimensions packs, although support for that video game ended in 2017.
The Future Of The LEGO Movie Franchise
Things have been in limbo for the LEGO Movie franchise since the last two movies were box office disappointments. It caused DC Superfriends to end up being canceled when Warner Bros. lost the rights to LEGO following The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part being seen as a box office disappointment, making only $199.6 million.
Sadly, this means there will be no LEGO releases with Emmet, WyldStyle, Unikitty, MetalBeard, and other original movie characters. That is because Warner Bros. owns these original characters, and Universal, which now controls the LEGO brand, can’t use them. The LEGO Movie franchise itself is dead.
Universal also can’t use characters like LEGO Batman in their movies, since Warner Bros. also owns the rights to all DC characters. As a result, the only LEGO movie that the company has made after its acquisition is Piece by Piece, a Pharrell Williams biopic with the story told using LEGO bricks.
Universal has announced they plan to make three new LEGO Movies from directors Jake Kasdan, Patty Jenkins, and Joe Cornish. However, bizarrely, the announcement was that these would be live-action movies, which seems to defeat the idea of using LEGOs in movies.