After hurting its fingers and grumbling a lot of curse words at what is supposed to be a children’s toy, Warner Bros. has removed the Phil Lord and Chris Miller-shaped piece from the Lego Movie sequel that it is assembling. Lord and Miller directed the first movie—and also created a certain cult-classic cartoon show—but the pair will simply be producers on the sequel. As reported by Deadline, The Lego Movie’s animation co-director, Chris McKay, will be replacing Lord and Miller in the tiny plastic director’s chair.
It’s worth pointing out that McKay, unlike his predecessors, has not created a cult-classic cartoon show, but he has won an Emmy for his work as a director on Adult Swim’s Robot Chicken. That means he has professional experience making toys do funny things, even though everyone probably laughed when he put that on his résumé.
According to that Deadline article, The Lego Movie 2 will be a “straight sequel,” so it will presumably follow the continued adventures of Chris Pratt’s Emmet (and hopefully Will Arnett’s Batman). Additionally, Warner Bros. is interested in pursuing a spinoff focused on Lego’s Ninjago brand, since kids probably love whatever a Ninjago is. Warner Bros. announced late last month that the Lego Movie sequel won’t be coming until May 26, 2017, so that gives McKay plenty of time to prove himself to fans of the first movie. We’d suggest creating a cult-classic cartoon show.