Warner Bros. Animation seems to have settled upon a director for The LEGO Movie Sequel after parting ways with their previous choice, Rob Schrab, due to “creative differences.” According to The Hollywood Reporter, Trolls director Mike Mitchell is the studio’s choice to helm the upcoming entry in the so-called LEGO cinematic universe and sequel to 2014’s smash hit The LEGO Movie.
Mitchell’s hiring certainly makes sense, as he delivered a box office and (somewhat) critical success with Trolls for Fox and has been making light and vibrant kid-friendly movies for the past decade between Sky High, Shrek Forever After and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked. The latter two of the aforementioned movies were fairly disappointing, but the former remains an underappreciated gem.
One can’t help but wonder what “creative differences” got in between Schrab and Warner Bros. Schrab seemed like an ideal candidate for the job: he had a lot of directing experience with TV shows such as The Mindy Project, Community and Workaholics, worked in the LEGO universe before with a LEGOLAND attraction short called The LEGO Movie 4D: A New Adventure and had numerous writing credits that suggested he would’ve brought a cleverness similar to that of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, directors of the first movie, to the sequel.
Speaking of Lord and Miller, due to their involvement with the Han Solo standalone movie and plenty more, they will only serve as producers and co-writers on the sequel. BoJack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg also got his hands on the script for rewrites.
The LEGO Movie Sequel is set to be released on February 8th, 2019, almost exactly five years after The LEGO Movie hit theaters; the latest LEGO movie, The LEGO Batman Movie, is due out in one week.
Originally published February 3, 2017. Updated April 15, 2018.
