The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

***The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part*** (known in some countries as ***The Lego Movie 2***) is a 2019 computer-animated musical science-fiction action-adventure comedy fantasy film produced by the Warner Animation Group and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. A direct sequel to *The Lego Movie* (2014), it is the fourth film in the franchise, following the release of two spin-offs, *The Lego Batman Movie* and *The Lego Ninjago Movie* (both released in 2017). Animal Logic, who provided the animation for all the films in the franchise, returned. It is Warner Animation Group's sixth feature film.

The film is directed by Mike Mitchell, with Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (writers and directors of the first film) returning as producers and writers; animation direction is by Trisha Gum. It features Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Charlie Day, Alison Brie, Nick Offerman, and Will Ferrell reprising their roles from the previous film and new additions to the cast, including Tiffany Haddish, Stephanie Beatriz, and Maya Rudolph.

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part was released in the United States on February 8, 2019, in 2D, 3D, RealD 3D, Dolby Cinema, IMAX, and IMAX 3D formats. The film received positive reviews from critics, who commended its humor, screenplay, animation, and voice acting, although some said it was not as "fresh" as the first film. Despite grossing $199.6 million worldwide against a budget of $99 million, the film became the franchise's second box office disappointment after *The Lego Ninjago Movie*, which led Warner Bros. to sell the rights of *The Lego Movie* franchise to Universal Pictures, which was later set for a five-year deal. A third film is in development.

## Plot

It's been five years since the first film's events. As the story continues, Finn's younger sister Bianca has started taking some of his LEGO creations and other toys from the sets in their basement along with her own set of Duplo bricks to play with in her own room. Metaphorically, in the LEGO universe, the Duplo invaders have turned Bricksburg into a post-apocalyptic wasteland named Apocalypseburg and continue to invade periodically. The ordeal has made most of Apocalypseburg's citizens hardened, but Emmet remains upbeat, wanting to move into a dream home with Lucy. However, Emmet is troubled by dreams of a pending "Our-Mom-Ageddon".

General Sweet Mayhem, the leader of the Duplo army, arrives in Apocalypseburg and announces that Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi of the Systar System intends to wed Batman. Mayhem's forces kidnap Batman, Lucy, Benny, MetalBeard, and Unikitty, taking them to the Systar System. Batman is taken to Wa'Nabi, where he eventually finds that the Queen helps satisfy his emotional validation and proposes marriage. The others are placed in environments designed to tempt them. The others each fall for these temptations, but Lucy refuses to accept hers, an endless attempt to brainwash her with catchy pop music.

Emmet converts his dream house to a spaceship to give pursuit. En route, he is saved from colliding with an asteroid field by the rugged adventurer Rex Dangervest. As they continue on to the Systar system, Emmet begins to take on several of Rex's mannerisms, hoping to impress Lucy. When they arrive, they evade capture by Wa'Nabi's forces and join with Lucy. Rex helps them develop a plan to rescue their friends, which involves switching off the pop music that is brainwashing the others, while Emmet will destroy the reception cake encased in a temple to stop the wedding. As Lucy fights Mayhem to get to the music, she learns that the Systar System was never meant to be antagonistic to Apocalypseburg but instead tried to establish peace between them and simply failed at communicating this well. Lucy tries to stop Emmet from destroying the temple, but Emmet, facilitated by Rex's manipulations, destroys the temple anyway. This creates a hole in the LEGO universe, and Wa'Nabi warns them all the Our-Mom-Ageddon is upon them all.

In the real world, the act of destroying the temple is represented by Finn angrily destroying Bianca's LEGO creations. Hearing them bicker, their mother orders them to put the LEGOs into storage. Emmet tries to stop them but is prevented by Rex, who reveals he is an embittered version of himself from the future. After being neglected for years underneath the dryer after crashing in the asteroid field, he time-traveled back intending to deliberately bring upon the Our-Mom-Ageddon as revenge. When Emmet tries to fight back, Rex knocks him under the same dryer, ensuring that he would continue to exist. Lucy rallies the others into escaping from the storage bin and brings them back into the LEGO world. Emmet and Lucy overpower Rex and destroy his time machine. Realizing that Emmet being saved by Lucy means he won't end up becoming him, Rex's timeline, and therefore Rex himself, is erased from existence.

Wa'Nabi and Batman finally wed, represented by Finn and Bianca reconciling and agreeing to play together again. Their mother returns their LEGOs, averting Our-Mom-Ageddon. The LEGO universe is transformed into a mishmash of Apocalypseburg and the Systar System called "Syspocalypstar," which is peaceful. After rebuilding Emmet's dream house, Lucy reveals that she was one of the original artists of "Everything is Awesome," much to the former's shock.

## Cast

* Chris Pratt as Emmet and Rex Dangervest
* Elizabeth Banks as Wyldstyle/Lucy
* Will Arnett as Batman
* Tiffany Haddish as Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi
* Stephanie Beatriz as General Sweet Mayhem
* Charlie Day as Benny
* Alison Brie as Unikitty
* Nick Offerman as Metalbeard
* Jason Sand as Finn
* Brooklyn Prince as Bianca
* Maya Rudolph as Mom, Dorothy Gale
* Will Ferrell as Lord Business/President Business, "The Man Upstairs"
* Richard Ayoade as Ice Cream Cone
* Channing Tatum as Superman
* Jonah Hill as Green Lantern
* Cobie Smulders as Wonder Woman
* Jason Momoa as Aquaman
* Margot Rubin as Harley Quinn, Susan, Mermaid, Wonder Woman Mini-Doll, Panda
* Ike Barinholtz as Lex Luthor
* Ralph Fiennes as Alfred Pennyworth
* Will Forte as Abraham Lincoln
* Bruce Willis as Himself
* Ben Schwartz as Banarnar
* Jimmy O. Yang as Zebe
* Noel Fielding as Balthazar
* Jorma Taccone as Larry Poppins
* Gary Payton as Himself
* Sheryl Swoopes as Himself
* Todd Hansen as Gandalf and The Swamp Creature
* Liam Knight as Sewer Babies
* Doug Nicholas as Chainsaw Dave
* Mike Mitchell as Mrs. Scratchen-Post, Guard, Octopus, Harmony Town Citizen, Announcer, Apocalypseburg Warrior
* Chris Miller as Chad, Chocolate Bar, Horse, Paper Boy, Plantimals
* Emily Nordwin as Cleopatra
* Chris McKay as Larry the Barista
* Trisha Gum as Velma
* Ryan Halprin as Dolphin Clock

## Production

### Development

On February 3, 2014, Jared Stern was hired to write the sequel, along with Michelle Morgan. On March 12, 2014, Deadline reported that animation co-director Chris McKay would direct the sequel with Phil Lord and Christopher Miller as producers. On April 10, 2014, it was reported that McKay wanted to have more women in the sequel than men. On July 28, 2014, it was reported that Chris Pratt wants to return to reprise his role as Emmet. It was also reported that Will Arnett might return to reprise his role as Batman but had not decided yet.

In October 2014, Warner Bros. scheduled The Lego Batman Movie for 2017 and The Lego Movie 2 for May 25, 2018. On October 25, 2014, it was reported that Lord and Miller had signed on to write The Lego Movie 2. On October 30, it was announced that Australia-based animation studio Animal Logic was in talks to produce the next three Lego films (though the deal was not finalized at the time), and the New South Wales government would make financial contributions to all the films. On November 12, during an interview with BBC News, Lord and Miller revealed that there would be more female characters featured in the film.

On February 24, 2015, the sequel was titled The Lego Movie Sequel, and Rob Schrab was announced as the film's director, replacing McKay as director as he was scheduled to direct The Lego Batman Movie instead. By November 2015, Miller announced that the first draft of the script was completed. Subsequent rewrites were provided by Raphael Bob-Waksberg, Dominic Russo, and Matthew Fogel. By February 2017, Schrab had been replaced by Mike Mitchell, reportedly due to "creative differences". Production started in Canada on October 2, 2017. In an interview with Collider, producer Dan Lin confirmed that Lord & Miller were rewriting the script during production.

The film is dedicated to Charlie Miller, Christopher Miller's mother, who died on December 27, 2018, before the film was released.

### Writing

The Lego Movie 2's narrative starts after the first film's events, just as Finn's toddler sister Bianca starts to play with Duplo blocks and tries to take over Bricksburg. Bianca has taken more of the Lego sets to incorporate into her own creations in the intervening years. The animation team recognized that girls would likely use Lego bricks and incorporate other materials, such as fabrics and paper, creating a challenge for their rendering team. They wanted these elements to appear as if a child was manipulating them through their stop-motion animation process. They explored multiple design styles for each playset that is within Bianca's room, the "Systar System", and developed new animation approaches for some of these styles, including using fewer frames as in inbetweening.

They also incorporated the Lego Friends line of toys aimed at girls, including mini-dolls like General Sweet Mayhem. However, unlike traditional Lego mini-figurines, the Lego Friends' mini-dolls do not have the same articulation, for example, having no separate leg movement or wrists that rotate. The production team, working with Lego, did not want to create walking and movement patterns that did not match the articulation the real figurines could do and came up with creative solutions for animating these in the film. This also created a challenge for at least one song and dance number; production brought in a choreographing team to help plan out the dance considering the restrictions of movement for the mini-figures. For Queen Watevra Wa-Nabi, the production team decided to simply assign a pile of random Lego bricks for her but required each of the forms that she could shape-shift into used only those bricks from that pile.

Among a concern between the creative leads was how to represent the Lego universe. Miller stated that they see each of the Lego films taking place in a child's mind, with both The Lego Movie and The Lego Batman Movie occurring within Finn's mind. With The Lego Movie 2, both Finn and Bianca's imaginations drive events, and the creators opted to leave parts of the film vague if the scene was based on Finn's version, Bianca's version, or some combination. However, in some scenes, they wanted to be clear that Finn or Bianca's view influenced the events and thus provided clues such as the type of dialogue given by the main characters to figure out whose imagination was at work.

Among the mini-figures within the film will be one based on Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Lord and Miller had considered figures that would be unexpected within the film, with Ginsburg as one of their ideas. They received Ginsburg's blessing for this appearance, though she did not perform any voice work for this role. Subsequently, the Ginsburg mini-figure will be made as part of the movie's toy line.

### Casting

On March 23, 2018, it was reported that Tiffany Haddish had been cast in the film to voice a new lead character, while returning actors would be Chris Pratt as Emmet, Elizabeth Banks as Wyldstyle, Will Arnett as Batman, Channing Tatum as Superman, and Jonah Hill as Green Lantern. Stephanie Beatriz and Arturo Castro were announced to be part of the film on June 4, 2018. Castro was replaced by Richard Ayoade in the final film. During San Diego Comic-Con 2018, it was announced that Pratt would also voice a new character in addition to Emmett, Rex Dangervest, who is based after Pratt himself, while Margot Robbie would reprise her role as Harley Quinn from the DC Extended Universe, replacing Jenny Slate from The Lego Batman Movie. In November 2018, Maya Rudolph joined the cast. In early January 2019, it was revealed that Jason Momoa would reprise his role as Aquaman from the DC Extended Universe. Gal Gadot was to also reprise her role as Wonder Woman from the DC Extended Universe, replacing Cobie Smulders from the previous film, but Smulders ended up returning shortly before the film's release.

Daniel Radcliffe was originally set to voice a look-like of his iconic Harry Potter character known as Larry Potter, but his scene was ultimately cut. It was revealed by Mike Mitchell that Radcliffe's cameo was deleted due to not wanting to risk anything that would upset the Harry Potter fandom. The character was replaced by Larry Poppins (another look-alike character based on a British media icon).

## Music

*Main article: The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (soundtrack)*
Following the same attempt to create an earworm with the first film's "Everything Is Awesome", the producers of the film created a similar song for the sequel, called "Catchy Song", which principally features as its only lyric the repeated phrase "This song is gonna get stuck inside your head". The song was written by Jon Lajoie, produced by Dillon Francis, and sung by T-Pain and That Girl Lay Lay. According to Lajoie, he found that "Everything is Awesome" was "annoyingly catchy", and the only way that they could outdo that was "Dial the 'annoying' up to 11!".

Mark Mothersbaugh, who composed the first film's soundtrack and the score for The Lego Ninjago Movie, returned to compose the score for the sequel.

## Release

### Theatrical release

The film was theatrically released in the United States and the United Kingdom on February 8, 2019. The film was released one day earlier in Denmark. This was its third rescheduling; it was first scheduled to be released in the US on May 26, 2017, and then on May 18, 2018. The film was originally titled The Lego Movie Sequel before it was officially renamed The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part in May 2018.

On January 24, 2019, Warner Bros. announced it would hold one-day previews for the film in 500 theaters in the United States on Saturday, January 26, 2019.

### Marketing

On June 4, 2018, the first poster was released, along with an announcement that the first trailer would be released the following day. The second trailer was released on November 20, 2018, along with the second poster. On Black Friday 2018, Warner Bros. released The Lego Movie on YouTube in its entirety for one day only, with a trailer for The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part attached. The third and final trailer was released on December 19, 2018. In the UK, DFS Furniture ran a marketing campaign that tied in with The Lego Movie 2. Other brands that partnered with the film include Chevrolet for promoting the Silverado, Chiquita, McDonald's for Happy Meal toys, and Turkish Airlines.

#### Video game

*Main article: The Lego Movie 2 Videogame*
A video game based on the film, The Lego Movie 2 Videogame, a direct sequel to The Lego Movie Videogame, was announced on November 27, 2018, and was released on February 26, 2019, two weeks after the film's release, for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and for the Nintendo Switch a month later on March 26. A Microsoft Windows version was also released.

### Short films

On August 1, 2018, Turkish Airlines and Warner Bros. released a special safety video featuring characters from the franchise. On December 10, 2018, Warner Bros. released a short film, Emmet's Holiday Party, as a Christmas-styled promotion for the film. On January 8, 2019, one month before the film's release, Lego released a music video titled "Everything is Awesome" Dance Together Music Video on its official YouTube Channel. The video uses the titular song. From January 5 to January 26, 2019, the Lego channel made a franchise of short films, Saving Bricksburg, in which characters from the film were shown in short reenactments of The Lego Movie.

## Reception

### Box office

As of February 11, 2019, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part has grossed $36.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $18.5 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $54.7 million.

In the United States and Canada, The Lego Movie 2 was released alongside What Men Want, Cold Pursuit, and The Prodigy and was originally projected to gross $50–55 million from 4,303 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $1.5 million from Thursday night previews, and when combined with advance screenings held at 550 theaters on January 26, 2019, made a total preview gross of $2.1 million. After making just $8.5 million on its first day, weekend estimates were lowered to $31 million. It debuted at $34.4 million, finishing first at the box office but marking a 50% decline from the first film.

### Critical response

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 85% based on 202 reviews, with an average rating of 7/10. The website’s critical consensus reads, “While it isn’t quite as much fun as its predecessor, The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part fits neatly into an animated all-ages franchise with heart and humor to spare.” On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100, based on 45 critics, indicating “generally favorable reviews”. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “A–” on an A+ to F scale (down from the first film’s “A”), while those at PostTrak gave it an average of 4 out of 5 stars; social media monitor RelishMix noted online responses to the film were “great”.

Jesse Hassenger of The A.V. Club called the film “lovable”, giving it a grade of B and writing “Like Brad Bird’s recent Incredibles 2, it follows up a dazzling animated original (all the more dazzling for earning that designation despite being based on a toy line) with some big ideas that don’t cohere with the same streamlined magic as its predecessor.” TheWrap’s Yolanda Machado commended the screenplay and directing and wrote that the film “expands on the original’s premise, adding new worlds and characters to the growing LEGO universe, while also crafting a story that is timely, inventive, hilarious and perfect for all ages.”

Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly says that while it was better than most other films, it didn’t recapture the surprise of the first film, saying, “Everything is still awesome. Just a little bit less so.” For The Hollywood Reporter, Michael Rechtshaffen wrote that the film brought “little that’s fresh or funny to the interlocking brick table despite boasting a script penned by originators Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.”