The Lego Movie

Another question. . . what was this movie's budget? The Other Wiki says it was $99 million, but I've heard figures ranging from $90 million (which is more in line with other LEGO titles) to $100 million.

It's all relative, Hollywood Accounting and so forth. The budget may or may not take in the money given from kickbacks, incentives, Product Placement or late game reshoots (movies have been used for money laundering, claiming to spend 50 million but really only 5 million goes to the actual movie). 90-100 million is a good ballpark figure.

Edited by KJMackley on Mar 20th 2019 at 2:12:12 AM

I'm skeptical about the higher end of that range. I think $90 million is more likely, given that the movie's production values don't seem terribly different from the other LEGO movies, none of which cost more than $80 million. But of course, I can't exactly ask Wikipedia about it.

To some extent, we should be suspicious of budget numbers in general. Just look at the Hollywood Accounting page in general. Kinda strange how something that cost Warner Brothers so much money (i.e. Batman (1989)) got so many sequels. Actual expressed budget numbers are more along the line of "the biggest lie we think we can get away with."

Edited by 32_Footsteps on Mar 20th 2019 at 4:19:56 AM

I enjoyed this movie. Maybe it's not as great as the first, because the premise is no longer as fresh as it was, but it's still a solid story with wonderful animation. And the song totally isn't stuck in my head!

Now, it might be because I watched the two within a two-day interval (there were half-price tickets during those three days in my country, gotta take advantage of it), but I see some similarities between this movie and Captain Marvel... does anyone else agree?

I mean, they do share the plot twist of having the evil alien invaders ending up not that evil after all, and the mentor figure to the hero proving himself to be the bad guy all along... I guess it's in fashion this year.

Part of it's just gut feeling. The first LEGO Movie had an official budget of $70 million, according to Box Office Mojo. The LEGO Batman Movie and The LEGO Ninjago Movie cost $80 million each. If they keep increasing the budgets like that, $90 million is what I would expect this movie to cost.

The $99 million figure is mentioned on The Numbers, but not on Box Office Mojo, which I generally tend to prefer for movie performance analyses since it's what professionals use.

On the bright side, if it cost $90 million instead of $99 million, then it should be a little easier to earn it back.

Edited by ElSquibbonator on Mar 20th 2019 at 11:54:18 AM

All I can say is these songs are amazing!

All of the metaphors, learning about sharing, and so on took a backseat to "Gothan City Guys", "Not Evil", and the catchiest song ever.

Just thought I'd throw this in here. . . it looks like the movie won't be crossing $200 million worldwide after all.

An important thing to remember, though, is that the LEGO movies are meant to sell toys, after all, and toys are always good for bringing in extra money. If toy sales are taken into account, then this movie's total revenue should exceed the $200 million mark.

Even ignoring that, it's possible (though by no means certain) that The LEGO Movie 2 actually did break even in theaters, though it clearly did not make a huge profit from ticket sales alone. See, the studio takes a different cut of the gross depending on the market— typically 55-60% of domestic grosses, and 30-40% of overseas grosses. Let's do some math:

The LEGO Movie 2 cost somewhere between $90 and 99 million, and it earned $104 million domestically and $79 million overseas.

55% of 104 is 57.2, and 40% of 79 is 37.9. Add those together, and we get 96.7

So if we take the low end of the estimates for the movie's budget, then we have $96.7 million going back to the studio against a $90 million budget. That's breaking even, but only barely, which given the circumstances is probably the best we can hope for. I should also emphasize that this is speculation, and NOT what I think is a fact regarding the movie's performance. As for WB Animation themselves, they should be fine. . . especially considering that next year, Space Jam 2 will probably make all the money in the world from nostalgia-crazed millennial audiences.

TL;DR: WB is probably still going to end up making a profit from The LEGO Movie 2, regardless of how it does in theaters thanks to toy sales, streaming rights, and other such things. If it breaks even in theaters, well, so much the better.

Edited by ElSquibbonator on Apr 3rd 2019 at 1:57:45 PM

This might be one of those "milked too hard, too fast" deals. I've liked every single one of the animated Lego films (I'm probably in the minority that thought Lego Batman was the weakest of the four, though I still really like it), but the fact that we've had one every year does make it feel like the franchise is being pushed a bit hard. To some extent, I get it, in that Warner's current feature animation group really is still getting its legs under it (I had issues with Storks), but pushing too hard on it is resulting in burnout, it feels like (for all that I liked Lego Movie 2, parts of it felt like it needed more development time).

Tellingly, WB seems to be giving the series a rest for now. Their upcoming slate of animated movies—Scoob, Tom and Jerry, DC Super Pets, and Space Jam 2— doesn't include any LEGO titles.

Both The Lego Batman Movie 2 and a film alternately called The Billion-Brick Race or The Lego Brick Race were previously announced, but neither has a release date anymore (Race was originally scheduled to come out this May but obviously isn't).

Edited by IHOP on Apr 6th 2019 at 9:06:52 AM

And with Lego Movie 2 not doing so well, I don't have high hopes for them.

There hasn’t been any word on them since 2017. Between the failure of the Ninjago movie and the success of Smallfoot, it seems to me like Warner Bros is trying to wean themselves from the LEGO movie franchise. They’re trying to branch out. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s already been cancelled.

After the Ninjago movie flopped, WB probably took a good look at their animated movie slate and decided to phase out the LEGO series. They still had to release the sequel since it was so far into production, but the other spinoffs got dumped. They released The LEGO Movie 2 because they had to—it was already well into production when Ninjago flopped and caused them to rethink their commitment to the LEGO movie series. Hence the new focus on classic animated properties and DC Comics characters.

Don’t expect to see another LEGO movie for several years at least.

I admit, I would probably have liked to see The Billion Brick Race.

Mostly because the name implies a Wacky Racing type deal, and it seems like you could get amusing with that. Maybe bring back Sam Sinister/Mr. Hates/One of his hundred other names and have him be the "Dick Dastardly" of the movie.

It seems they're trying to mine their old Hanna-Barbera characters for new animated CGI films, starting with Scooby-Doo, and establishing a shared universe. And with Space Jam 2 coming, I think they're giving the Looney Tunes another shot at theatrical films too.

It appears Warner Bros.' LEGO franchise is over, probably for good. WB and LEGO opted not to renew their production deal last fall after The Second Part under-performed at the box office and Universal is now the leading contender to produce future LEGO movies. Producer Dan Lin is expected to remain involved.

One caveat: Any new LEGO movies from Universal will involve a Continuity Reboot, as WB owns the Lego Movie characters.

Edited by Mario1995 on Dec 19th 2019 at 5:59:08 AM

Why not just create an entirely new movie, then?

An entirely new LEGO movie? That's probably what Uni is thinking about.

Well, that's a bummer.

I'm considerably worried they'll plop this with Illumination and any future LEGO movies will just be profitable despite critics crying "MEDIOCRE."

And hey, is it me or is there some weird back and forth rivalry thing going on between WB and Universal?

• Dr. Seuss adaptations used to be a Universal thing only to go to WB a while ago.
• Pacific Rim got its first movie via WB and its second one from Universal.
• Detective Pikachu was going to be from Universal, but then it went to WB.
• Seventh Son was also going to be from WB, until going to Universal.
• Kong: Skull Island was going to be from Universal, but they didn't want it connecting to a WB movie (Godzilla), so it went to WB.
• And years ago, before Hanna-Barbera was bought off by Turner which in turn got bought by WB, Hanna-Barbera stuff like The Flintstones movies were from Universal, but now everyone associates Hanna-Barbera with WB.

Anyone else see it?

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Dec 19th 2019 at 7:42:20 AM

Not sure what I'd think of Illumination doing it.

I just hope they don't ditch the stop motion style.

IMO, this is WB shooting itself on the foot. Releasing two LEGO movies was a bad idea and they completely botched the marketing campaign for The Second Part. It seemed WB was more interested in the LEGO video games and unrelated DTV spinoffs than the movies.

Love them or hate them, Universal Animation (both the DreamWorks and Illumination sides) is perhaps the best positioned to directly take on Disney Animation in terms of film quality and marketing movies well. I think that because of that, they'll be better suited to tackle LEGO than WB ever was. They'll almost certainly not pull off the two-LEGO-movies-a-year shit WB did, not to mention make as many licensing deals as possible to get the word out.

Edited by Mario1995 on Dec 20th 2019 at 5:05:16 AM

WB's animated film division has already proven that it doesn't need to rely on the LEGO movies to be successful. So far they've had three successful non-LEGO-related movies (Storks, Smallfoot, and Teen Titans Go! To The Movies).

The movies they have planned for the next couple years— a Scooby-Doo reboot and a Space Jam sequel— seem like obvious safe crowd-pleasers and will probably do fine, as does Dave Green's recently announced Coyote Vs. Acme. They've also entered a production deal with British studio Locksmith Animation, whose first film, Ron's Gone Wrong, is due out in 2021. So WB has plenty of room to expand even without the LEGO series.

This might be a setback, but, like a certain coyote, they're down but not out.

Edited by ElSquibbonator on Dec 20th 2019 at 12:48:08 PM

If I remember correctly, Storks didn't do too well and Smallfoot was only a moderate success. Teen Titans Go! actually did well, though. These films (as well as the decline of the Lego Franchise) are probably why Warner Bros. is going the more safe route of well established franchises and sequels to majorly successful movies.

True, but even Storks did better than The LEGO Ninjago Movie, which is saying something when you consider that one was a completely original film and one was part of a well-established franchise.

And it's official: Universal signs five-year deal with LEGO Group for new movie franchises.

Safe to say that The Billion Brick Race isn't happening.