Interview [Written]: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller pretty much do it all: TV (How I Met Your Mother), movie directing (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, 21 Jump Street, 22 Jump Street), and screenwriting (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, The Lego Movie). Here is a THR interview with the duo:
Given The Lego Movie’s success, are you now the keepers of the Lego franchise?
LORD We are working with [producers] Dan [Lin] and Roy [Lee] and Warners on developing more installments of the franchise and a few standalone offshoots. The Ninjago movie is slated already for 2016.
Unlike Transformers, which already had developed a mythology, you were working with a blank slate on Lego. What was your starting point?
MILLER It was the exact opposite of Transformers. Transformers had all of this IP and all of this storytelling, but they didn’t have a very strong position in the marketplace. Lego’s one of the fastest-growing and biggest toy brands in the world.
LORD We got inspired by the great films that people make online, little stop-motion movies they make in their basement. We thought, “What a crazy thing to make. There’s this manufactured, centrally planned toy that creates all of this spontaneous, democratic, populous creativity.” The tension between somebody dictating how you’re supposed to build the thing and these fans making their own thing seemed like a great idea for a movie about creativity. Lego just trusted us and said, “Well, please make sure there are cool vehicles in the movie so we can make toys.”
MILLER There was a Clockwork Orange joke we had to take out where Emmet was being re-educated because he had seen too much and it was crazy. They were like, “I don’t know if this is the most appropriate reference.”
Warners and Lucasfilm have licensing deals with Lego, but did you have to get separate permissions to use Batman and Han Solo in the movie?
MILLER The DC Comics characters were the easiest ones. We had to talk to Zack Snyder’s company and make sure there was no overlap with our Superman and his Man of Steel. And then we went to Lucasfilm and pitched a potential Star Wars bit. Luckily, all these companies that have partnered with Lego have had really good experiences and wanted to say yes on some level.
LORD And Lucasfilm has a philosophy of, “We will support the exploration of these characters in pop culture.”
How far along is a Lego Movie sequel?
LORD Still in the stage where we’re sitting around talking about things and trying to figure out how to craft a story.
MILLER We have a lot of themes and some ideas that we like.
LORD One of the problems we made for ourselves is the brand of the movie is originality. So it’s really hard to sequelize that.
For a New York Times feature on Lord and Miller, go here.
For the rest of the Hollywood Reporter interview, go here.
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