The LEGO Movie was one of the most unexpected, but most successful films of 2014. Against all odds it was not just a box office office smash hit, but also incredibly beloved. And as such, we’ve been eagerly looking forward to the follow-up of the adventures of Emmet, Wildstyle and of course Batman. But would appear that we’re going to have to wait longer than expected until everything is awesome again.
Over the weekend Warner Bros revealed a newly shaken up release schedule (via Deadline) that saw four feature films shuffle their release dates. The most affected though is the still untitled sequel to The LEGO Movie which has been pushed back a whopping nine months from 18 May 2018 to 9 February 2019!
The calendar reshuffle also sees Dean “Stargate” Devlin’s Geostorm also pushed back 13 January 2017 to 20 October 2017, and the Owen Wilson/Ed Helms comedy Bastards also bumped backwards from 4 November 2016 to 27 January 2017. Meanwhile, among all the backward movement, there was also some positivity as Ben Affleck’s crime thriller Live By Night has actually been brought forward from 20 October 2017 to 13 January 2017.
No reason was given by the studio for all these moves, but The Lego Movie sequel delay is especially bad news, since the original release date was already pretty far down the line. This sequel will see the main cast of voice actors led by Chris Pratt and Elizabeth Banks returning, but writers/directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller will now only be on screenplay and producing duties. Robot Chicken’s Chris McKay – who also acted as the original movie’s animation co-director – was slated to take over the directing duties by himself, but then instead moved over to The LEGO Batman Movie when it was decided to develop the spinoff before the next sequel. That allowed Rob Schrab of The Sarah Silverman Program and Community fame to take over as director as well co-writing the script.
Not much is known about that script at this point, other than it will supposedly be set four years after the events of the first film and that Lord and Miller have indicated that we should be expecting more prominent female characters. Based on how damn good the first film was, and the resume of everybody involved in this sequel, I’m really stoked for whatever they can cook up. It just sucks that we’re going to have to wait so damn long to see it.
Last Updated: June 20, 2016
