For Warner Bros., a ‘Cinematic Universe’ Built of Lego Bricks
Each morning, Warner Bros. hosted a yogalike workout (“for the ninja in everyone”) on a lawn
that it billed as “ninjoga.” The studio also flew in several actors who voiced characters in the film — Dave Franco, Michael Peña, Kumail Nanjiani and Olivia Munn — for a presentation that included the unveiling of a new trailer set to Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood.”
“The key for us is to reach both adults and kids,” Dan Lin, the producer behind the “Lego” movie series, said at the presentation.
And now, a short seven months later, comes “Ninjago.”
The stakes are high for Warner Bros. Few films on its schedule are more important than “The Lego Ninjago Movie,” which it sees as part of a continuing “cinematic universe”
and a pillar for the studio, with additional original installments and sequels exploring different genres planned for the next decade and beyond.
“Kids are bouncing from one to another.”
Underscoring the importance of “The Lego Ninjago Movie,” Warner Bros.
and Lego headed to Comic-Con International, the annual comic book convention in San Diego, over the weekend to mount a full-court press to woo die-hard fans.
But a related follow-up to the original, “The Lego Batman Movie,” released in February,
took in only $311 million, in part because girls were not as interested.
But as both ramp up promotion for the September release of their third film together, “The Lego Ninjago
Movie,” some are wondering whether the cinematic landscape is cluttered with too many Lego bricks.