While doing press for 21 Jump Street, Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and, more importantly, Clone High) discussed their “LEGO” movie over at Warners and name-dropped The Matrix, The Magnificent Seven, Lord of the Rings, Time Bandits and Star Wars as tonal and plotting inspirations. The point? If you’ve got a moronic task to bring pieces of plastic to life, go huge. It worked for Michael Bay, and this team brings more to the table in terms of character and story. So, this thing could be awesome (in the oldest sense of the word, Wesley).
That’s definitely a thought to get used to, but something even crazier is the idea that Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker could be making appearances. When he mentions Star Wars, it might be more than a reference point. According to Collider, Miller offered up that the usual yellow pieces won’t be the only things saving the day. “I will give you one piece of tidbit which is that there are some [Intellectual Property] characters, LEGO characters, but we can’t say who they are (laughs). That’s not really a tidbit, but it’s not just all original characters, there are some from other things that you might recognize.”
It seems unlikely that they’ll get the spotlight, but with the involvement of director Chris McKay from Robot Chicken, it seems like LEGO Batman be hanging out at the bar with LEGO Indiana Jones for a few pop culture references while LEGO Hermione snaps LEGO Ron’s wand. So there you go, Harry Potter fans. The boy who lived might not be done with movies yet.
So if I buy the rights to make a movie about the My Dinner With Andre action figures, I can make a movie with Sean and Andre? Is that how it all works now?