Producer Dan Lin proved with "The Lego Movie" that he could make a critically and commercially successful film based on a toy. Now the pressure is on to do the same with "The Lego Batman Movie." The rap group De La Soul reveals it's innovative approach to making it's latest album which has now paid off with a Grammy nomination. And can Warner Bros. pave the way for movie studios to subvert the traditional way movies get distributed?
What 'The Lego Batman Movie' has in common with 'Deadpool'
When "The Lego Movie" premiered in 2014, it was a surprise critical and commercial hit.
The surprise was partly due to the expectation that the film would be one long commercial for Legos when, in the end, it was a pretty good movie.
The film did help sell Legos, but it also opened to almost universal acclaim. It also grossed nearly half-a-billion dollars worldwide. Naturally, Warner Brothers wanted a follow up film — actually, several more Lego movies.
The next film in what’s become the Lego franchise is “The Lego Batman Movie” and it opens on Feb. 10. Will Arnett is the voice of Batman, Michael Cera is Robin and Zach Galifianakis is The Joker.
Dan Lin produced "Lego Batman" and the original "Lego Movie." He visited The Frame studio to talk about building an unexpectedly successful movie into a film franchise.
Interview highlights:
On whether the success of the first "Lego Movie" meant the filmmakers had less creative freedom on the second film:
It's just the opposite. If we don't have creative freedom, and if we don't take risks, we're doomed to fail. We'll definitely make a bad movie. So the challenge for us is, How do we protect that with just a lot more stakeholders? How do we get them involved? How do we get them involved early? How do we educate them on why we're doing things? But for us, no, we're not going to not take risks. This is actually the time to take even more risks.
On the comparisons between "The Lego Batman Movie" and "Deadpool":
We were already making this movie before "Deadpool" came out, so we had no idea. I love that people talk about our movie as being like a family version of "Deadpool," but it's kind of a coincidence. It's kind of a great catchphrase and a great marketing hook, but we certainly weren't looking at "Deadpool" as a model. We were already doing this version of Lego Batman in the first movie, we've now just given him his own movie.
On the challenge of sustaining Will Arnett's brash Batman character for an entire movie:
He cant be a jerk for the whole movie. That's the main thing. 'Cause certainly, too much of that egotistical, selfish character is going to make him an unlikeable character. So it's a very tricky balance. We have to set him up in that way, but then you have to show his vulnerability. You know, he's just like the rest of us. Ultimately he's looking for a family, he's lonely.
On whether Lego has any "red lines" when it comes to things like guns or smoking:
They don’t want Lego [mini-figures] to kiss. They let us try it. In the first movie, we tested it and we tried to even make it funny and moms hated it. And so we've learned that we never want characters to kiss in a Lego movie [although they can hug or hold hands]. As filmmakers, we don't want gun violence in our movies, especially family movies. And so [director] Chris McKay and the actors came up with a "Pew pew!" [sound] ... It is hilarious. So those "pew pews" are not sound effects, they are really the actors making those noises.
On other Lego movies that are in the works:
What we pitched is that we're going to build to the sequel. "Lego Batman" is not a sequel to the first movie, it's a standalone movie. And what we're going to do is take our "Lego Movie" approach and approach different genres. So the first movie was an adventure movie. It's basically a kids' "Matrix." Second one with Lego Batman is a superhero action movie. Next one, "Ninjago," which comes out this fall, is going to be a martial arts/kung-fu movie. And then we're going to build to "Lego Movie 2." That's phase one for us, and then phase two we're going to approach other genres.
De La Soul previews its Kickstarter-funded album, 'And the Anonymous Nobody'
UPDATE: De La Soul's "And the Anonymous Nobody" is nominated for Best Rap Album at the 2017 Grammy Awards on Feb. 12.
It’s been 26 years since De La Soul came on the scene with their landmark album "3 Feet High and Rising," which introduced the world to a style that combined clever wordplay with samples from a vast catalog of funk, soul and jazz.
But it’s been 11 long years since the hip-hop trio released a full-length album. For their latest, the group is foregoing the traditional record label model and asking for help on Kickstarter. They reached their $110,000 goal in less than a day and have already tripled that goal with 25 days to go.
The band landed in legal trouble for sampling other people’s music without permission in the past, so over the past few years, De La Soul has been jamming and recording with musicians to create hundreds of hours of new music. On this new album, the group will take these new tracks and essentially sample themselves.
Let the copyright lawyers try to crack that case.
David Jude Jolicoeur and Kelvin "Pos" Mercer join The Frame from Atlanta (where the album is being recorded) to talk sampling, going without a record label and what you can expect from the new album.
Check out a short sample from the new album:
Interview Highlights:
What brought you back together to record this album?
Dave: We're always recording in some fashion. It's something that we do while we're on the road, it's something that we do while we're at home, and the time was just pressing — we had put out a couple singles here and there and a couple of mixtape projects that people were reacting to, and then we just fell into this situation with this amazing band, the Rhythm Roots All-Stars, so we figured, "Hey, this can be a great concept here. Let's pursue it and work on a true De La, studio-released album."
You're taking an interesting approach with this record. It sounds like you're creating a database of music and then sampling yourselves?
Dave: Yeah, but it didn't begin that way. It wasn't like we sat down and said, "Ha ha, this is how we combat the sampling situation." It really came creatively, just sitting down in the studio with musicians, which we've never done before, and loosely directing them to create sounds.
We had been recording at Vox Studio in L.A., an old studio that many of the greats had recorded at, and the sounds from those boards came out sounding so warm and so good. It sounded like old-school records that we would sample from.
So we were like, "Why don't we just continue to jam and jam and jam, and then we'll go back and listen to these things and see what we can get out of them?" That's where the idea came from, so we're now listening back to over 200 hours of music and sourcing samples from those sessions.
This endeavor is funded on Kickstarter, and you reached your goal very quickly. Why did you feel that crowdfunding was the best idea for this album? Did you try to go through a label?
Dave: Being away from the politics of the industry and labels was one of the best feelings in our 26, 27 years. [laughs] We didn't want to pursue anything with a label; we wanted to find a way to do this ourselves.
Kickstarter, being one of those places where entrepreneurs and creative people are, was very interesting to us. It just was the best option, instead of — I hate to put it this way, but this is the way it feels — putting our hands behind our backs and enslaving us to another corporation/record company and forfeiting our creative life.
We wanted to be able to express ourselves without having anyone stick their heads into a studio, like, "We'd like a song like this, you guys should work with these producers, we've got writers, et cetera." We've so loved being able to shut the doors, do what we do, and say, "Here, world, this is what we've got." Love it or hate it, at least we know it's coming from us.
You've been together since 1987. How have you managed to stay together as a group despite everything that life throws your way?
Pos: We've known each other even longer than that, just from going to school together since maybe sixth grade. To enter into a creative partnership as a group and learn business with each other, we're like brothers. There's days when we hate each other, but at the end of the day we love each other.
We put up with each other, we take it, and we've learned to respect each other's views. It's not necessarily work all the time, also — we're family, and that can shine through any problems we might have.
Dave, the last record from De La Soul was from 2004. How much longer do we have to wait to hear this record?
Dave: This record's coming soon. We promised people that this record will be delivered in 2015, and right now it's tentatively due for September. If we can get it out sooner, we'll make that happen. It's good that we're receiving so much love, and if we can accelerate that time and get it to fans sooner, that's what we're going to do.
Listen to the audio to hear the full interview with De La Soul.
Check out more classic De La Soul:
Warner Bros. stays on course to make films available for early streaming
Have you ever wondered why you have to wait about three months to watch a new theatrical release at home through a streaming service?
Well, studios are asking that same question.
Kevin Tsujihara, the Warner Bros. CEO, said in a call with analysts that he hopes to reach a deal with theater owners that would allow his studio to release movies for streaming at home as early as two weeks after they open in theaters.
is a senior film and media editor at Variety. Last year, he broke the news about Sean Parker’s controversial plan to launch The Screening Room, a startup aimed at making new releases available in the home the same day as in theaters.
When The Frame's John Horn spoke with Lang this morning, he explained why theaters might be more receptive to Warner Bros.' proposal.
Part of this model is actually kind of cribbed from The Screening Room model, which is that you cut theater owners in on a percentage of the profits so that they give [up] something, but they get something in return.