While Chris Lord and Phil Miller are staying on to produce and co-write the second Lego movie, they won't be directing the film. This honour, and an inevitable, at least semi-apologetic Oscar, is going to Rob Schrab. Schrab's best known work is on Community, The Sarah Silverman Program and The Mindy Project. Just last year he made a short called Cops Cum Dicks and Flying, again with Silverman and also Seth Rogen, and which you can see at the bottom of this post. But not if you're at work. It would get you some funny looks, maybe even a fresh P45. Schrab is a funny guy, and Lego seems like the perfect project for him to take on as his feature debut. It's got that anything-goes, irreverent sensibility that allows wickedly inventive and zippy directors do excellent work. There are several Lego Movies coming. Before we even get to this actual sequel, there's a Ninjago picture, directed by Charlie Bean, and the hotly anticipated Lego Batman movie coming too. Batman's being directed by Chris McKay, the co-director of the original Lego Movie. Warner Bros. are building a whole franchise here, and it's going to be hard to keep standards as sky-high as with the first film, but I'm sure the seriously busy Lord and Miller will do everything they can to keep things on track, in between whatever other loopy projects they're developing. Worst case scenario, we'll get some funny films that feel just a little bit redundant. I can live with that. Ninjago is set for September 2016, The Lego Batman Movie will follow on May 26th 2017, and then The Lego Movie Sequel and another, a yet unnamed Lego picture will round things out on May 25th 2018, and May 24th 2019. At least, that's the plan for now - these dates haven't been Kragled into place.
Brendon Connelly has been a film writer since the early 90s, with time on the staff of Orbit Magazine, Slashfilm, Bleeding Cool, Den of Geek and many more. He's a long time teacher of film studies and practical filmmaking classes, and has directed music videos, commercials, short films and more. His favourite film is Terry Gilliam's Brazil, his favourite food is pancakes or crepes, and he tries to live his life by the teachings of Kermit the Frog.
