Plans for a sequel to The Lego Movie began in February 2014 and were announced to be in the works, four days before the release of the first film. It was announced that the film would be directed by Chris McKay while Phil Lord and Christopher Miller remained as writers and producers in March 2014. The film has since undergone many changes, such as rewrites, directors, and release dates, with Mike Mitchell being later announced as the new director in February 2017. Production for the film began in October 2017, with the majority of the cast members returning to voice the characters in mid-2018, along with the new cast. As with all its previous installments in the franchise, the animation was provided by Animal Logic. To improve on-screen detail and depth-of-field, the production of the film took advantage of the latest update to its trace renderer Glimpse. Mark Mothersbaugh, who composed The Lego Movie and The Lego Ninjago Movie, returned to composed the film's musical score, with artists such as Dillon Francis, Beck, Robyn and The Lonely Island performing new original songs for the film.
The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part premiered in Los Angeles on February 2, 2019, and was released in the United States on February 8, 2019. It received generally positive reviews.[6] Despite grossing $199.6 million worldwide against a budget of $99 million, the film became the franchise's second box office disappointment after The Lego Ninjago Movie, which led Warner Bros. to sell the rights of The Lego Movie franchise to Universal Pictures, which was later set for a five-year deal. A new film under this partnership is in development.
Plot
Shortly after the destruction of the Kragle, Duplo aliens arrive in the Lego universe and threaten destruction.[a] Emmet builds the aliens a heart as a token of friendship, but one eats it and demands more. Lucy and the Master Builders believe this to be an attack and retaliate, and the ensuing battle ravages Bricksburg.
Five years later, the teenaged Finn has rebuilt Bricksburg as "Apocalypseburg". Within the Lego universe, they have been ravaged by repeated Duplo attacks, and several of their friends have gone missing while searching for the Duplo home planet. Emmet remains upbeat in stark contrast to Lucy and his friends, though he has visions of an impending "armamageddon". A mini-doll called General Sweet Mayhem arrives, kidnaps all of Emmet's friends, and takes them to the shape-shifting empress of the "Systar System", Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi. Emmet tries to convince the Master Builders to help him save Lucy and the rest of his friends, but they refuse to help, believing that he is not tough enough to go through the Systar System. Emmet subsequently crafts a spaceship to pursue Mayhem by passing through the "Stairgate". Meanwhile, Wa'Nabi can seemingly brainwash Emmet's friends into accepting the joy of her world, and convinces Batman to marry her as a way to unite the Lego, Mini-doll and Duplo worlds, with only Lucy remaining skeptical of Wa'Nabi's plans.
Emmet's ship is heavily damaged and nearly collides with an asteroid field, but is saved by rugged adventurer Rex Dangervest. After hearing Emmet's story, Rex offers to help and takes them to the Systar System, and en route, Emmet tries to emulate some of Rex's mannerisms. When they arrive, they quickly reunite with Lucy and learn of the marriage plans, which Rex insists must be a front to bring on "armamageddon".
As the wedding starts, Emmet, Rex, and Lucy split up to sabotage the event. Mayhem, who insists the wedding is intended to prevent "armamageddon", intercepts Lucy instead, and explains their true intentions. At the ceremony, Wa'Nabi reveals her true form: the heart that Emmet tried to give the Duplo invaders. Realizing that Mayhem was right, Lucy tries to stop Emmet, but he crashes the ceremony. In reality, Finn, after finding that his sister Bianca had taken his Lego figures, has smashed her own creations. Emmet realizes his mistake, but is seized by Rex, who reveals he is a version of himself from the future. Rex had collided with the asteroids, and ended up under the dryer, become embittered after forgotten by Finn. To ensure his future existence, he changed his appearance and created a time-travel machine to return to help Emmet but make sure "armamageddon" came to pass. When Emmet refuses to abandon his friends, Rex knocks him under the same dryer, ensuring that he would continue to exist.
In the real world, Finn and Bianca's mother is fed up with the kids' bickering, and as punishment, orders them to put the Lego toys into the storage bin; Lucy recognizes this as Emmet's "armamageddon" (as in "our mama gets in"). Both the Lego, Mini-doll and Duplo figures are put into the "Bin of Storajj" and fear they will not escape.
Meanwhile, Finn finds the pieces of Wa'Nabi's form in one of the storage bins, which is revealed to be a heart that Finn gave to Bianca five years earlier, telling her it can be "whatever you want it to be". Finn and Bianca reconcile and start playing together. In the Lego universe, this act inspires Lucy and the others to escape the Bin and help rebuild Wa'Nabi's world. Lucy then saves Emmet from Rex, destroying the time machine in the process. Emmet comes to accept he will never be as skilled as Rex, and with this self-realization, Rex fades from existence, correcting a time paradox.
Finn and Bianca's mother sees them playing together, and happily watches them. The Lego universe is recreated as a mish-mash of Apocalypseburg and the Systar System, renamed "Syspocalypstar". When Emmet's home is rebuilt, Lucy makes Emmet a gift of the original album of "Everything Is Awesome", revealing that she co-originated the song, causing Emmet to gasp in shock.
Rex Dangervest, a self-proclaimed "galaxy-defender, archaeologist, cowboy, and raptor trainer." He is eventually revealed to be Emmet's dangerously nihilistic future self. His character is based on Pratt's most famous roles.[8]
Elizabeth Banks as Lucy / Wyldstyle, a Master Builder and Emmet's girlfriend.[7]
Tiffany Haddish as Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi, the shape-shiftingalien queen of the Systar System that was made by Emmet as a heart.[7] Her name is a pun on the phrase "whatever I want to be", itself a descriptor of her shape-shifting abilities, which are displayed when she changes into multiple forms throughout the movie.
Stephanie Beatriz as General Sweet Mayhem, an intergalactic mini-doll who serves as the intergalactic naval commander and law enforcer of the Systar System Armed Forces. She is the right-hand woman to Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi.[9]
Charlie Day as Benny, a Master Builder who is a spaceship-obsessed 1980s spaceman.[10] In contrast to the previous movie, he has a metallic arm.
Alison Brie as Princess Unikitty / Ultrakatty, a Master Builder who is a unicorn-horned cat. In this film, instead of turning red when angry, she is red right from the outset. Over the years since the first film, she has developed the ability to become a giant version of herself called "Ultrakatty" when combat is about to occur.[11]
Nick Offerman as MetalBeard, a Master Builder who is a large bionic pirate with a severed head after he lost his original body in an earlier encounter with Lord Business' forces.[7]
Jadon Sand as Finn, a young teenager in the real world, whose imagination drives the events happening in the Lego universe.[12]
Brooklynn Prince as Bianca, Finn's younger sister, who is the reason why the aliens from the planet Duplo attacked Bricksburg.[13]
Maya Rudolph as Mom, the unnamed mother of Finn and Bianca. She is the force in the real world that brings about "Armamageddon" ("Our mama gets in"). She was previously voiced off-screen by Amanda Farinos in the first film.[14]
President Lord Business, the former President of the Octan corporation and the Lego World, who served as the main antagonist of the first film.[15]
The Man Upstairs, a Lego collector who is Finn and Bianca's father. Outside of re-used footage from the first film, Ferrell does not appear on-screen in this role, performing only in an off-screen voiceover, although a photo of the Man Upstairs and his family on a log flume ride can be seen in his daughter Bianca's bedroom.
Richard Ayoade as "Ice Cream Cone", a talking ice cream cone and citizen of the Systar System who serves as Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi's aide.[9]
Wonder Woman mini-doll, an inhabitant of Harmony Town.
Panda, a panda-masked inhabitant of Apocalypseburg.
Ike Barinholtz as Lex Luthor, a DC Comics supervillain, Master Builder and arch-enemy of Superman.[18] Strangely, he and the Man of Steel have somehow become best friends after being brain-washed by the Queen.
Jimmy O. Yang as Zebe, a lavender and black zebra who is a citizen and the bus driver of the Systar System.[16]
Noel Fielding as Balthazar, a sparkly-faced teenage vampire, spa expert, and DJ from the planet Sparkle in the Systar System describing himself as an "attractive and non-threatening teen vampire." He is a nod to Edward Cullen from The Twilight Saga.[21]
Chris McKay as "Larry", a barista that works in Apocalypseburg.
Ralph Halprin as "Dolphin Clock," an orbiting clock in the Systar System that is based on Bianca's actual clock.
Additionally, the characters of Bad Cop / Good Cop (now known as Scribble Cop) and Vitruvius' ghost return, but they have only brief lines of dialogue and are voiced by uncredited actors in place of Liam Neeson and Morgan Freeman.[22]
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who wrote and directed the first film, returned as writers and producers of the film.
On February 3, 2014, Jared Stern was hired to write the sequel, along with Michelle Morgan.[23] On March 12, 2014, Deadline reported that animation co-director Chris McKay would direct the sequel with Phil Lord and Christopher Miller as producers.[24] On April 10, 2014, it was reported that McKay wanted to have more women in the sequel than men.[25] On July 28, 2014, it was reported that Chris Pratt wanted to return to reprise his role as Emmet. It was also reported that Will Arnett might return to reprise his role as Batman, but had not decided.[26]
In October 2014, Warner Bros. scheduled The Lego Batman Movie for May 26, 2017, and The Lego Movie 2 for May 25, 2018.[27][28] On October 25, 2014, it was reported that Lord and Miller had signed on to write The Lego Movie 2.[29] On October 30, it was announced that Australia-based animation studio Animal Logic was in talks to produce the next three Lego films (though the deal was not finalized at the time) and the New South Wales government would make financial contributions to all the films.[30] On November 12, during an interview with BBC News, Lord and Miller revealed that there would be more female characters featured in the film.[31]
On February 24, 2015, the sequel was retitled The Lego Movie Sequel and Rob Schrab was announced as the film's director, replacing McKay as director as he was scheduled to direct The Lego Batman Movie instead.[32] By November 2015, Miller announced that the first draft of the script was completed.[33] Subsequent rewrites were provided by Raphael Bob-Waksberg,[34] Dominic Russo[35] and Matthew Fogel.[36] By February 2017, Schrab had been replaced by Mike Mitchell, reportedly due to "creative differences".[37] Production started in Canada on October 2, 2017.[38][39] In an interview with Collider for the press day for The Lego Ninjago Movie, producer Dan Lin confirmed that Lord & Miller were rewriting the script during production. He also said that the sequel was going to include more songs due to the success of competing Disney musical films like Frozen and Moana.[40]
The production of the film took advantage of Animal Logic's latest update to its trace renderer, Glimpse, to improve on-screen detail and depth-of-field.[41] Miller stated that he will dedicate the film to his mother, Charlotte "Charie" Miller, who was born in July 1949 and who died in December 2018, two months before the film's release.[42]
Writing
The Lego Movie 2's narrative begins after the events of the first film, just as Finn's toddler sister Bianca starts to play with Duplo blocks and tries to take over Bricksburg. In the intervening years, Bianca has taken more of the Lego sets to incorporate into her own creations. The animation team recognized that girls would likely not only use Lego bricks but also incorporate other materials, such as fabrics and paper, creating a challenge for their rendering team. They wanted these elements to appear as if a child was manipulating them through their stop-motion animation process. They explored multiple design styles for each playset that is within Bianca's room, the "Systar System", and developed new animation approaches for some of these styles, including using fewer frames as in inbetweening.[12]
They also incorporated the Lego Friends line of toys aimed at girls, which include mini-dolls like General Sweet Mayhem. However, unlike traditional Lego mini-figurines, the Lego Friends' mini-dolls do not have the same articulation, for example, having no separate leg movement or wrists that rotate. The production team, working with Lego, did not want to create walking and movement patterns that did not match the articulation the real figurines could do, and came up with creative solutions for animating these in the film. This also created a challenge for at least one song and dance number; production brought in a choreographing team to help plan out the dance taking into account for the restrictions of movement for the mini-figures. For Queen Watevra Wa-Nabi, the production team decided to simply assign a pile of random Lego bricks for her, but required that each of the forms that she could shape-shift into used only those bricks from that pile.[12]
According to Lord and Miller, each Lego Movie takes place in the imagination of a child that represents the real and Lego worlds. Miller explained that the directors wanted to have its story be "more complicated and sophisticated". With The Lego Movie 2, both Finn and Bianca's imaginations drive certain scenes, and the creators opted to leave the film's vague parts if the scene was based on Finn's version, Bianca's version, or some combination.[13]
Among the minifigures within the film is one based on Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Lord and Miller had considered figures that would be unexpected within the film, with Ginsburg as one of their ideas. They received Ginsburg's blessing for this appearance, though she did not perform any voice work for this role. Subsequently, the Ginsburg mini-figure would then be made as part of the film's toy line.[43][44]
Casting
On March 23, 2018, it was reported that Tiffany Haddish had been cast in the film to voice a new lead character, while returning actors would be Pratt as Emmet, Elizabeth Banks as Wyldstyle, Arnett as Batman, Channing Tatum as Superman, and Jonah Hill as Green Lantern.[7]Stephanie Beatriz and Arturo Castro were announced to be part of the film on June 4, 2018.[9] Castro was replaced by Richard Ayoade in the final film. During San Diego Comic Con 2018, it was announced that Pratt would also voice a new character in addition to Emmet, Rex Dangervest, who is based after Pratt himself.[8] In November 2018, Maya Rudolph joined the cast.[14] In early January 2019, it was revealed that Jason Momoa would reprise his role as Aquaman from the DC Extended Universe. Gal Gadot was to also reprise her role as Wonder Woman from the DC Extended Universe, replacing Cobie Smulders from the previous film,[45] but Smulders ended up returning shortly before the film's release.[16]
Daniel Radcliffe was originally set to voice a look-alike of his Harry Potter known as Larry Potter, but his scene was ultimately cut. It was revealed by Mitchell that Radcliffe's cameo was deleted due to not wanting to risk anything that would upset the Harry Potter fandom. The character was replaced by Larry Poppins (another look-alike character based on a British media icon).[46]
Following the attempt to create an earworm with the first film's "Everything Is Awesome", the producers of the film created a similar song for the sequel, titled "Catchy Song", which principally features as its only lyric the repeated phrase "This song's gonna get stuck inside your head". The song was written by Jon Lajoie, and recorded by Dillon Francis, featuring T-Pain and Alaya High (the latter under her stage name That Girl Lay Lay). According to Lajoie, he found that "Everything is Awesome" was "annoyingly catchy", and the only way that they could outdo that was "Dial the 'annoying' up to 11!".[47]
Mark Mothersbaugh, who composed the first film's soundtrack, as well as the score for The Lego Ninjago Movie, returned to compose the score for the sequel.[48] Both the soundtrack and score albums were released by WaterTower Music on February 7, 2019, a day before the film's release.
The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part premiered on February 2, 2019, at the Regency Village Theatre in Los Angeles.[55] It was initially scheduled for release in the United States on May 26, 2017,[56] but was later pushed back to May 25, 2018,[28] then May 18, 2018,[57] and finally February 8, 2019.[58] The film was released one day earlier in Denmark.[59]
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment released The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part for digital download on April 16, 2019, and on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K formats on May 7. Physical copies contain behind-the-scenes featurettes, audio commentary, deleted scenes, and the short Emmet's Holiday Party.[60]
Reception
Box office
The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part grossed $105.9 million in the United States and Canada and $93.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $199.6 million.[5] It is considered the franchise's second box-office disappointment, following The Lego Ninjago Movie (2017).[61][62][63][64]
In the United States and Canada, The Lego Movie 2 was released with What Men Want, Cold Pursuit, and The Prodigy on February 8, 2019, and was projected to gross $50–55 million from 4,276 theaters in its opening weekend.[65] However, after making $8.5 million on its first day, including $1.5 million from Thursday night previews, weekend projections were lowered to $31 million. The film debuted earning $34.1 million from 4,303 theaters, finishing first at the box office and making it a higher opening than The Lego Ninjago Movie by 69%, but was lower than The Lego Movie by 50% and The Lego Batman Movie by 35% as well as second-worst opening of the franchise. Deadline Hollywood attributed the low opening to franchise fatigue due to the release of two spin-offs prior to The Lego Movie 2, as well as Warner Bros. promoting the film using similar marketing tactics from the first film, leading audiences to assume the sequel as derivative and indistinguishable from its predecessor.[66][67][68]The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part completed its theatrical run in the United States and Canada on May 9, 2019.[69]
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 84% of 302 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "While it isn't quite as much fun as its predecessor, The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part fits neatly into an animated all-ages franchise with heart and humor to spare".[70] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100, based on 52 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[71] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale (lower than The Lego Movie's "A"), and PostTrak rated it 4 out of 5 stars; social media monitor RelishMix noted their online responses were "great".[66]
Jesse Hassenger of The A.V. Club called the film "lovable", giving it a grade of B and writing "Like Brad Bird's recent Incredibles 2, it follows up a dazzling animated original (all the more dazzling for earning that designation despite being based on a toy line) with some big ideas that don't cohere with the same streamlined magic as its predecessor."[72] Yolanda Machado of TheWrap commended the screenplay and directing and wrote that the film "expands on the original's premise, adding new worlds and characters to the growing LEGO universe, while also crafting a story that is timely, inventive, hilarious and perfect for all ages."[73]
Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly says that while it was better than most other films it did not recapture the surprise of the first film, saying "Everything is still awesome. Just a little bit less so."[74] For The Hollywood Reporter, Michael Rechtshaffen wrote that the film brought "little that's fresh or funny to the interlocking brick table despite boasting a script penned by originators Phil Lord and Christopher Miller."[2]
Following The Lego Movie 2's disappointing box office returns, Warner Bros. allowed their film rights with Lego to expire. Lego entered negotiations with Universal Pictures for a new first-look deal. Dan Lin was expected to remain as producer through his company Rideback.[84] In April 2020, the deal with Universal was set for a five-year film deal.[85]
On August 5, 2022, in a podcast interview with The Ankler, Dan Lin revealed that a new film in the series is in development. Lin promised that the creative team has "reinvented" the LEGO world for the film, but it does not yet have a release date.[86][87] By July 2023, it was announced that Aaron and Adam Nee were attached to direct the film.[88][89]
