THE LEGO MOVIE 2 Will Be a "Big Musical" with "Space Action," Says Chris McKay

With The LEGO Batman Movie currently in theaters and a LEGO Ninjago film on the way, the novelty that began with 2014's The LEGO Movie seems likely to slowly erode as more and more LEGO-related properties continue to fill the marketplace. But that movie will always be amazing to me for the way it smartly commented on the nature of creativity and storytelling while also being a fun, rip-roaring adventure through all sorts of fun LEGO environments. I've been wondering if the direct sequel would be able to live up to the high standard of the first movie, and while the jury's still out in that regard, we now know more about what to expect from The LEGO Movie 2 than we did before.

On the Shanlian on Batman podcast (via Heroic Hollywood), The LEGO Batman Movie director Chris McKay discussed how The LEGO Movie 2 was delayed in order for his film to come out first, and he dropped some knowledge about what kind of movie that sequel will be:

“LEGO 2 is going to be this big musical and space action movie. They need a lot of the writing, a lot of development with — not only with script development, but development with songwriters. So it was very ambitious to get that movie out.”

Mike Mitchell (Trolls) has taken over The LEGO Movie 2 director's chair from Rob Schrab, who recently bowed out after taking a crack at the movie. The script was originally written by The LEGO Movie co-writer/directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, although recent reports indicate it's since been rewritten a handful of times, so it'll be interesting to see how much of their irreverent spirit remains in the final product when we eventually see it in 2019. Either way, though, the idea of a big LEGO musical with space action sounds pretty damn appealing to me.

The whole podcast episode is worth a listen, so if you have thirty free minutes in your day, I'd recommend checking it out.