It has made over $400 million at the international box-office already, but the director of The Lego Movie sequel Chris McKay said fans have plenty to look forward with the second film - especially female fans. The animated hit features feisty femme Wyldstyle (voiced by Elizabeth Banks) as one of the central characters, but McKay believes there needs to be more gender equality next time around.'I’m not sure our movie passes the Bechdel test entirely and I think that it's important,' he told MailOnline. Everything is awesome: The Lego Movie filmmaker Chris McKay promised more 'strong females' in the sequel, pictured at the LA premiere in February Box office hit: The Lego Movie has made over $400M in international ticket sales, with a second film already green lit by the studio 'For us we have a lot of producers that were female who had concerns and we were always constantly saying to ourselves: 'Are we just a bunch of white guys sitting here making this movie from our own myopic point of view?
'We were constantly responding to that question and that helped us make Wyldstyle a better character and Unikitty a more interesting character.'I think it's forcing us to look at how we make a sequel and turn that into something that's more powerful and special.' The US filmmaker served as the animation co-director on The Lego Movie, before being given the pat on the shoulder by Warner Bros. studios to direct the inevitable follow-up. Cartoon character: Elizabeth Banks voices the main female Wyldstyle in The Lego Movie, pictured at the New York premiere in February Femme fatale: Chris McKay said having female producers helped make Wyldstyle a better character Having worked in the industry for over a decade, McKay is more than aware of the gender imbalance in Hollywood and sited the Bechdel test as a relevant benchmark.The test was named after American cartoonist Alison Bechdel who set the criteria for a work of fiction to pass as needing: at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man.
In a new study examining 1615 films released from 1990 to 2013, it showed films that passed the Bechdel test were just as profitable as those that didn't.Cate Blanchett addressed Hollywood's notion female-led movies weren't as popular in March when she accepted the best actress Oscar for Blue Jasmine. 'Those in the industry who are foolishly clinging to the idea that female films, with women in the centre are niche experiences. They are not,” she said in her speech.'Audiences want to see them. In fact they earn money.' Kidults descend: Animal Logic CEO Zareh Nalbandian and Chris McKay at the Sydney Lego Movie premiere in March Girl power: Female led films such as Jennifer Lawrence's The Hunger Games have been doing increasingly well at the box-office McKay agrees with her, and points to the success of recent female led films like The Hunger Games franchise and Frozen as evidence that they hold up at the box-office. 'Sexism is something that's part of our culture and something that we need to adjust,' he said.'People, when they make movies, they have a responsibility to at least examine that.'Obviously you have to look at the kind of story you’re trying to tell and the theme, but people don't underestimate the value of hard, cool female characters who have their own agency.'That’s the thing we’re not doing enough as filmmakers.'
Book online now and upgrade to a free annual pass Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett and Morgan Freeman lend their voices to this CGI-animated comedy based on the line of toys made by Lego. The wicked Lord Business (Will Ferrell) is determined to destroy the Lego universe and rebuild it using glue – which goes against the very nature of Lego. Mistaken as the ‘Special’, the only surviving Master Builder, the rather ordinary Emmet (Pratt) is selected to lead a group of figures on a mission to put a stop to Lord Business’s evil plan. Emmet is helped by wise wizard Vitruvius (Freeman), tough girl Wyldstyle (Banks) and DC superhero Batman (Arnett), but can he find something extraordinary within himself in order to save the world? The film also features the voices of Channing Tatum, Liam Neeson, Nick Offerman, Alison Brie and Jonah Hill. The LEGO Movie screening is part of our Brickish Weekend, so why not add a day out to your film fix. Doors Open (please note, the building will be closing from the daytime events) – bar and café available
The LEGO Movie screening Are there ID requirements or an age limit to enter the event? U Universal – Suitable for all – A U film should be suitable for audiences aged four years and over, although it is impossible to predict what might upset any particular child. What are my transport/parking options getting to the event? There are 400 free car parking spaces available on site. We are happy to call taxis for people and there is a bus stop to the 54 route within a few minutes walk of the Centre. What can/can’t I bring to the event? Food and drink will not be allowed to be brought onto the premises. Where can I contact the organiser with any questions? The National Space Centre – 0116 261 0261 (this phone line is manned Monday to Friday 09:00 – 17:00) Is my registration/ticket transferrable? No, tickets are non transferable or refundable. Can I update my registration information? No, once a ticket is purchased no changes can be made.
Do I have to bring my printed ticket to the event? Either a printed ticket, or a ticket on your phone or tablet (we like the non-printing option, it is better for the planet). What is the refund policy? All tickets are non-refundable.This piece discusses the plots of “The Lego Movie” and “The Lego Batman Movie.” Plenty of movie franchises run into trouble on the second go-around, when a sequel tries to recapture the precise magic of an original and fails to find its own niche. “The Lego Batman Movie,” the first spin-off of the wildly successful and inventive surprise that was 2014’s “The Lego Movie,” is absolutely distinct from its predecessor. In escaping the specific gravity of “The Lego Movie,” though, it has wandered into the orbit of other Batman movies in ways that make it less radical, and less of a delight, than the movie that originated it. One of the unique joys of “The Lego Movie” was the extent to which the movie genuinely felt like the creation of a child’s mind.
It was a hodgepodge that repurposed everything from Krazy Glue, recast as a superweapon the characters refer to as “the Kragle,” to the chewed-on stick from a Tootsie Roll pop that serves as the sorcerer Vitruvius’ (Morgan Freeman) staff. Writer-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller didn’t bother to dress up their story with fancy titles; Vitruvius’ prophecy refers to “the Special,” who will defeat the fiendish “Lord Business” (Will Ferrell), who turns out to be a stand-in for the detached father to the very real little boy, Finn (Jadon Sand), who is telling himself the story that we are watching. Magical kittens and Han Solo (Keith Ferguson) and Gandalf (Todd Hansen) and Batman (Will Arnett) all occupy the same fictional universe, their stories bleeding over into each other. Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), the heroine of the movie, makes her entrance in the film with the breathy line “Come with me if you want to not die.” “The Lego Movie” had ideas, too, namely about the way corporations profit by enforcing homogeneity and convincing consumers that they have genuinely distinct preferences rather than the tastes corporations have engineered for them.
Specifically, the Octan corporation produces everything in hero Emmet Brickowski’s (Chris Pratt) world, including “music, dairy products, coffee, TV shows, surveillance systems, all history books, voting machines.” But even that idea has its catchiest expression in “Everything Is Awesome,” a perfect earworm that sounds like what the result might be if a smart 10-year-old wrote the lyrics for a song with music by Max Martin. “The Lego Batman Movie” by its very nature lacks that childlike looseness and improvisation. It’s a highly referential parody, which means it requires the perspective that generally comes with being alive to watch pop culture evolve. There are references to tropes in “The Lego Movie,” like the head-spinning Good Cop / Bad Cop voiced by Liam Neeson, but they’re asides rather than the loose, wide-ranging substance of the movie. “The Lego Batman Movie” works best if you understand not merely how the depictions of Batman have evolved over the decades, but how those depictions, from Adam West’s TV turn as “Batman” to Zack Snyder’s much-derided “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice,” have been received.
The movie is absolutely arch and funny, but it lacks the anarchic goofiness that made “The Lego Movie” such a delight. “The Lego Batman Movie,” unlike “The Lego Movie,” plays out in a hermetically sealed universe. The third act of “The Lego Movie” reveals to us that Finn’s father, known as the Man Upstairs, is the creator of Emmet’s universe; he’s a tie-wearing middle-aged man who has built a perfect, formulaic Lego metropolis in his basement and forbidden Finn and his sister to play with it, on pains of gluing the whole thing together so they can’t change anything at all. Emmet’s adventures are the result of Finn’s monkeying around with the Legos without his father’s permission. The anti-corporate, pro-creativity message of the movie is as much a neglected son’s bid for his father’s affection as anything else, and lends a specific emotional weight to the ways in which Lord and Miller defied expectations for what a movie based on a toy could be. For all “The Lego Batman Movie” comments on the tradition of which it is a part, specifically on the relationship between Batman and the Gotham police, it lacks a device that would allow it to reframe its own message in a similar way.