COMIC-CON 2013

'LEGO Movie' Sets Jonah Hill & Cobie Smulders as DC Comic Heroes

by Ethan Anderton
July 20, 2013

Warner Bros. may have some big news leading up to the assembly of Justice League eventually with a Batman and Superman movie in the works, but today they assembled the world of LEGO with a fantastic panel for their animated The LEGO Movie from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and 21 Jump Street directors Phil Lord & Chris Miller. This is quickly becoming one of my more anticipated movies of 2014, and today the panel got me even more excited. First of all, it was announced that in addition to Channing Tatum voicing Superman and Will Arnett voicing Batman, Jonah Hill is playing Green Lantern and Cobie Smulders is playing Wonder Woman. So at least we get a LEGO Justice League next year. More below!

If you're not anticipating this movie arriving in 2014, it's time to start paying attention. Lord and Miller talked about figuring out a story set in the expansive LEGO universe with seemingly endless worlds from the building block sets, and they started by taking inspiration from LEGO fan films. And in the same spirit, they knew that the film needed a unique look from anything Warner Bros. had done in animation before. And if you've seen the trailer, you know the jerky movement of the characters adds some style and personality. But what's really cool, is the film will be a blend of computer animation and stop-motion animation with real LEGO pieces and sets. And they don't wand they audience to know the difference.

The footage shown featured an amusing real of auditions from the LEGO characters, giving us a really great idea of each LEGO figures personality. Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks and Morgan Freeman were all featured, but the show was stolen by the voices of Will Arnett as a cocky, playboy sort of Batman, Will Ferrell as the bossy villain Lord Business, and Liam Neeson playing a character called Bad Cop, but his head spins to reveal his Good Cop side for some truly hilarious stuff. And it sounds like there's a lot of surprise voices in store, because when a fan asked if they could reveal who was voicing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles LEGO figures, they held back the information.

In the trailer footage, the animation is stellar, and really adds some style. But more importantly, the originality and humor of the story and characters from a property that easily could have been phoned in is what's truly inspiring. Lord and Miller have taken the world of LEGO and brought it to life, and this has the potential to be a truly great film for the whole family with humor that hits for adults and kids alike. Make sure you watch the trailer for The LEGO Movie, and stay tuned to the film's Facebook page and keep checking back here for the latest updates. Sound good?

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