Showing posts with label The Lego Movie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Lego Movie. Show all posts

"The LEGO Movie" Assembles Quirky Cast of Characters

8:51:00 PM

A colorful cast of characters assembles in “The LEGO® Movie,” the first-ever, full-length theatrical LEGO® adventure, from Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures.

Directed by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller (“21 Jump Street,” “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”), it stars Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Nick Offerman, Alison Brie and Charlie Day, with Liam Neeson and Morgan Freeman.

Meet the lovable characters that populate the original 3D computer animated story!

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EMMET (Chris Pratt). An ordinary, rules-following, perfectly average LEGO minifigure who is mistakenly identified as the most extraordinary person and the key to saving the world. He is drafted into a fellowship of strangers on an epic quest to stop an evil tyrant, a journey for which Emmet is hopelessly and hilariously underprepared.

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WYLDSTYLE (Elizabeth Banks). A free spirit who loves pushing boundaries and being creative. She has a strong, independent streak that makes her question when things are wrong. Since she believes Emmet is the “Special” from The Prophecy who’s destined to save Bricksburg, sparks have been flying between them, in spite of herself… and her current boyfriend.

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PRESIDENT BUSINESS (Will Ferrell). President Business, an uptight CEO who has a hard time balancing world domination with micro-managing his own life. He operates a successful business front that creates music, TV shows, surveillance systems, history books and voting machines, in addition to all dairy products and coffee. Secretly, he is Lord Business, the most evil of tyrants who oversees a robot militia and attempts to take over the LEGO universe.

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VITRUVIUS (Morgan Freeman). An ancient and heroic wizard who prophesizes that a “Special” will defeat Lord Business and become the greatest LEGO Master Builder of all. He tries to teach Emmet that the key to true building is to believe in yourself and follow your own set of instructions inside your head.

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BAD COP/GOOD COP (Liam Neeson). Lord Business’s #1 henchman, whose loyalty is tested when he is forced to turn on his own parents. As the story unfolds, it is apparent that there can be a Good Cop inside him as well.

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BENNY (Charlie Day). This ‘70s era spaceman suffers from a cracked helmet and lack of oxygen. His first love will always be spaceships but he will do anything to help his fellow LEGO Master Builders.

Directors Phil Lord & Christopher Miller also wrote the screenplay, from a story by Dan Hageman & Kevin Hageman and Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, based on LEGO construction toys. It will incorporate some of the LEGO world’s most popular figures while introducing several new characters, inviting fans who have enjoyed the brand’s innovative toys and hugely popular video games for generations to experience their visually unique LEGO world as never seen before.

Opening across the Philippines on Feb. 6, 2014, “The LEGO Movie” is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

Chris Pratt Lends Voice to Accidental Hero, Emmet, in "The LEGO Movie"

8:03:00 PM

In Warner Bros. Pictures' new 3D, animated comedy “The LEGO Movie,” the world is due for a disastrous end if not for one accidental hero: Emmet.

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A construction worker and self-described nobody, Emmet adheres to the rules in every aspect of his life, content in the belief that he is the most ordinary, unremarkable person ever, until a crisis of monumental proportions reveals a surprisingly extraordinary side of him he never knew.

Providing the voice of Emmet is rising star Chris Pratt (“Delivery Man,” “Moneyball”) who will soon be seen in the Marvel feature “Guardians of the Galaxy,” in which he plays Star-Lord.

“On day one, we talked about our experiences building something out of LEGO bricks and the frustration we’d sometimes feel when we couldn’t find a specific piece right away. That feeling encapsulates who Emmet is to us,” says Dan Hageman, who, with writing partner and brother Kevin Hageman worked on the story with screenwriters Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. “He thinks his happiness is tied to following the instructions yet the fate of the world will rely on him discovering his own creativity,” adds Kevin.

Pratt says, “This challenge takes him through LEGO realms he didn’t know existed, where everything is just ridiculous but in a good way. It’s all beautiful, imaginative, exciting and very funny. There are loveable characters, amazing sets, insane action, a lot of love and a really positive message that you can feel comfortable bringing your kids to see.”

Emmet never met an instruction manual he didn’t like. Whatever the rules are, he’s glad to follow; whatever song is playing on the radio, he’ll sing along; whatever everyone else has for lunch or watches on TV, well, he’s cool with that. He even consults a book to remind him to shower and put on his pants (in that order) every morning before joining the Bricksburg citizenry on their orderly commute to work.

“We wanted someone with incredible comedy chops as our lead, but someone who can also be sweet and endearing, and embody this ‘regular guy’ spirit. Chris Pratt was our first choice; right out of the box,” says Lord.

Each day on the construction crew, Emmet happily razes any buildings deemed “weird” and replaces them with ones that look exactly like all the others, on orders from President Business. Says Pratt, “The city of Bricksburg is this big sprawl where everything looks the same and it’s all pre-fab modular homes, and any areas that have any flavor are being destroyed. So it’s being built as a kind of homogenous, utopian model, though you quickly sense there’s some underlying darkness here; something is controlling the people of Bricksburg.”

But life as he knows it is about to change when Emmet accidentally veers off the path at his site, falls headlong into a freshly excavated pit, and meets the trespassing Wyldstyle: the most beautiful and exciting woman he has ever seen. From her graffiti-splashed black hoodie to the turquoise and hot-pink streaks in her hair, to her take-charge attitude, there’s clearly nothing ordinary about this woman.

When Wyldstyle encounters Emmet at the construction site, she is there searching for the one thing that can block Lord Business’s terrible plan, according to prophecy: The Piece of Resistance. So when that vital piece turns up inexplicably fused to Emmet’s back, like it or not, the guy whose only ambition in life is to fit in suddenly becomes The Special, the most important person in the universe. And the most hunted. Before he knows what’s happening, Emmet is careening at high speed through the Bricksburg cityscape with Lord Business’s robot assassins in fierce pursuit.

Opening across the Philippines on Thursday, Feb. 6, “The LEGO Movie” is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

Liam Neeson, Will Ferrell Lead Voice Cast of "The LEGO Movie"

6:45:00 PM

Joining Chris Pratt in the voice cast of the first-ever, full-length theatrical LEGO® adventure “The LEGO Movie” are Academy Award-honorees Liam Neeson and Morgan Freeman, comic leading man Will Ferrell and talented actress Elizabeth Banks.

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The latter plays the female master builder Wyldstyle. Banks says, “I enjoyed being an action hero. Wyldstyle is trying to live up to her name. She has a nice rebellious streak in her, which is something I think most kids can relate to, and she’s pushing the envelope a bit to establish her own way in life and her own look. What I loved about the character is that she’s smart and strong. She has kick-butt powers and a lot of sass and she’s no damsel in distress. She’s there to save the day.”

While recording her dialogue, “I rarely wore shoes,” Banks reveals. “I was usually barefoot because I like to jump around and move. You can’t make noise over your vocals, so I have to take my shoes off, especially in an action movie. There’s a lot of punching and jumping and running, and I did all of that behind the microphone.”

Will Ferrell who plays Lord Business calls his character “a real control freak. Lord Business runs everything and doesn’t want any creative expression or anyone building anything that’s not on the instruction worksheet. He’s built the entire universe just the way he wants it, just perfect, and it drives him crazy that people come around and dare to change things.”

Lord Business is also remarkably tall for a LEGO minifigure, notes Ferrell. “In his public persona as President Business he has a more pleasant look, very corporate, three-piece-suit and a tie and not a hair out of place. However, when he reveals his true self, the maniacal Lord Business, he wears an impressive cape and 20-foot-tall boots—or, the 20-foot equivalent in LEGO terms—so he can look even more evil and terrifying.”

Lord Business’s number one enforcer is the alternately intimidating and wacky Bad Cop/Good Cop, a swivel-headed minifigure with a split personality, each of which is voiced by Liam Neeson.

“What’s so fresh about Bad Cop/Good Cop is that we literally see both sides of him,” says producer Dan Lin. “He’s Bad Cop whenever he’s executing Lord Business’s orders, and that’s the straight-ahead tough guy we’re used to seeing in the movies. Then he’s got the Good Cop side too, so he’s fighting with himself. One side of his face has the mirrored sunglasses and gritted teeth and is very stern, and the opposite side is much softer, with a smile, and Liam gives each of them their own identity.”

“When I saw some of the animation, and bearing in mind the history of New York police, I thought he should be Irish, and specifically from the North of Ireland,” says Neeson, who gave Bad Cop that particular accent, while bringing a distinctly different inflection to his better half. “The Good Cop, he’s Irish too, but he’s a wee bit more feisty.”

Neeson and Ferrell acted out some of their interactions and improvised together, via headphones, while Neeson was in a recording studio in New York and Ferrell was in Los Angeles. “Liam’s measured and mostly serious delivery as Bad Cop juxtaposed against Will’s outsized comedy take on Lord Business is hilarious,” says Lin.

In Morgan Freeman’s case, it’s his famously rich and authoritative voice that makes his characterization of the presumably wise wizard Vitruvius so laughable. Whether in his dramatic roles or noted documentary narrations, Freeman’s delivery unfailingly lends an air of truth and substance to whatever is being spoken. However, audiences will quickly grasp that not everything Vitruvius says can be trusted—or even makes much sense.

An ancient hippie sage clad in sandals and a tie-dyed shirt barely visible under his voluminous white beard, “Vitruvius talks a good game but he’s a little hazy on the details: like the prophecy and how, exactly, they’re going to stop Lord Business,” Miller concedes. “It’s almost as if he’s making it up as he goes along.”

Longtime fans of Freeman’s work will be surprised that this is the first time he has applied his resonant voice to an animated movie.

Opening across the Philippines on Thursday, Feb. 6, “The LEGO Movie” is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

"The LEGO Movie" Constructs Big, Fun Adventure Brick by Brick

2:42:00 PM

Anyone who ever designed a universe from a heap of parts on their bedroom floor will know what Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, writer/directors of Warner Bros.' new 3D animated comedy “The LEGO Movie,” mean when they say that, growing up, they always had buckets of LEGO® bricks. “We’d build spaceships and all kinds of crazy things, but it wasn’t just the building, it was the infinite possibilities of things to make and express that was so irresistible and exciting,” says Miller.

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As filmmakers, their interest took a different focus. “Chris and I were inspired by the ingenuity and humor that comes out of the international LEGO community,” says Lord, referring to such outlets as LEGO Cuusoo, the LEGO Group’s fan submission site for potential new products, “ReBrick” forums where people can share their creations, and the growing number of unique short films, using LEGO bricks and minifigures, that are produced and shared online by individuals from every corner of the world.

Such is the fascination of the LEGO brand, an endlessly evolving and hugely popular construction toy that has cultivated creativity across generations and cultures since its inception. Committed to upholding that principle, Lord and Miller knew from the start that this could be no standard animation but a virtual build, a feature-length motion picture made entirely of LEGO bricks and elements.

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“We both thought,” Lord continues, “‘Wouldn’t it be amazing to make a big, fun, action-packed LEGO adventure that captures the feeling of being a kid putting these pieces together, but on a truly epic scale?’ And what if it could retain that handmade quality these little films have that’s so engaging. Because part of the appeal of LEGO bricks is how accessible they are as an art form, we wanted to make a film that felt like something anyone could do in their own basement…provided they had a gigantic basement and a few million bricks!”

Actually, closer to 15 million, if you count each brick, character, set piece, and prop needed, as the filmmakers ultimately realized their vision for the film.

Indeed, “There are two different ways people play with LEGO bricks,” Miller relates. “One is to follow the instructions on the kit and put together this awesome thing, whatever it is, which you then set on your shelf and never use so it doesn’t break, and the other is to take a pile of random pieces and make something from your own imagination, then take it apart and make something else. ‘The LEGO Movie’ uses these two different approaches as the basis for its story, which is really about innovation and creativity and the importance of change.”

Producer Roy Lee calls the directors “two of the most creative people I know. They did an amazing job on ‘Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs,’ which was a fairly thin book, and they came in and reinvented some of the characters and really expanded it from what was on the page. With the LEGO concept, we had a blank canvas and they were the perfect guys to come in and invent a whole new world to explore.”

True fans and true originals, they brought equal parts reverence and irreverence to “The LEGO Movie.”

States Miller, “What we always try to do with our movies is create something that would make us laugh, and make our friends laugh. We don’t ever want to do something that talks down to kids.”

“Obviously, kids and their parents will get it,” Lord says, “but we wanted to bridge the generations and keep in mind that there’s a community of adult LEGO fans who make the most complex and incredible creations a kid might not even think of. My favorite films are the ones I can take my granny to, or my parents and my girlfriend, or my nieces and nephews, and know we will enjoy it together. That’s the most fun you can have at a movie theater—when people of all ages are laughing together.”

Opening across the Philippines on Thursday, Feb. 6, “The LEGO Movie” is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

"The LEGO Movie" Pops Up Character Posters

1:06:00 AM

The lead characters of Warner Bros.' original, 3D adventure comedy “The LEGO Movie” get solo posters of their own which have just been launched online.

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The characters receiving the special treatment are Batman (voice of Will Arnett), Benny (voice of Charlie Day), Emmet (voice of Chris Pratt), Lord Business (voice of Will Ferrell), Vitruvius (voice of Morgan Freeman) and WyldStyle (voice of Elizabeth Banks).

The first-ever full length theatrical LEGO movie follows Emmet, an ordinary, rules-following, perfectly average LEGO minifigure who is mistakenly identified as the most extraordinary person and the key to saving the world. He is drafted into a fellowship of strangers on an epic quest to stop an evil tyrant, a journey for which Emmet is hopelessly and hilariously underprepared.

Opening across the Philippines on Feb. 6, 2014, “The LEGO Movie” will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

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