Universal is developing three live action movies based on the popular Lego building blocks toy.
Deadline is reporting that the studio, in conjunction through its deal with The LEGO Group, is working with directors Jake Kasdan, Patty Jenkins and Joe Cornish on a trio of untitled live action Lego films.
Kasdan would be working off a script by The Grinder screenwriters Andrew Mogel and Jarrad Paul with an original idea and previous drafts by The Pickup‘s scribes Matt Mider and Kevin Burrows. Jenkins’ version is a screenplay which she wrote with her Wonder Woman 84 collaborator and former DC Entertainment President Geoff Johns. Cornish is reportedly currently rewriting a screenplay draft by Rick & Morty writer Heather Anne Campbell who penned her draft from a treatment by Man Seeking Woman scripter Simon Rich.
Universal and the LEGO Group first teamed up for the aptly named The Lego Movie in 2014, earning $467 million at the worldwide box office. Their first followup, 2017’s The Lego Batman Movie, also turned a tidy profit for the pair. Unfortunately, the two films subsequent films, 2017’s The Lego Ninjago Movie and 2019’s The Lego Movie 2: The Second Brick, performed poorly, not getting into the black on the studio’s ledger.
Notably, none of the trades reporting on this story have any information on what Universal’s plans for the three different projects. Are these three in a bake-off situation, where the studio will ultimately go with whichever one they feel is the best? (While not a common practice, it is also not an entirely alien concept for studios. Paramount recently did it with their Transformers franchise, ultimately choosing a screenplay that became 2023’s Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts. Granted, that was perhaps not the studio’s best decision given the final film.) Are these three films the start of a connected, live-action Lego franchise or will they just be three stand alone Lego films? That seems unlikely, as studio’s seem to be more cautious about announcing long-range franchise plans in the wake of several box office and critical disappointments over the last couple of years.
