LEGO Extended Universe: Wave One

Wave One is the first part of the LEGO Extended Universe and the first part of The Dimensions Series. From 2014 to 2022, the Wave One films grossed $2.4 billion ($ 2,426,546,777) worldwide.

Development
Warner Bros. Pictures obtained the film rights from LEGO to make an original film. Dan Lin conceived the idea for the film and began discussing it with Roy Lee before leaving Warner Bros. to form his own production company, Lin Pictures, in 2008. Meanwhile, Warner Bros. home entertainment executive Kevin Tsujihara, who had recognized the value of the Lego franchise by engineering the purchase by the studio of video game licensee Lego Traveller's Tales in 2007, thought that the success of Lego-based video games indicated that a movie based on Lego was a good idea and reportedly "championed" the development of the film. In August 2009, Dan and Kevin Hageman were writing the script described as an "action adventure set in a Lego world."

The directors of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009), Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, were in talks in June 2010 to write and direct the film. Warner Bros. greenlit the film in November 2011, with a planned release date of 2014. Australian studio Animal Logic, the same studio that did the animation for other Warner Bros. films such as Happy Feet and Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, was hired to provide the animation, which was expected to comprise 80%. of the movie.

By then Chris McKay, the director of Robot Chicken, had also joined Lord and Miller to co-direct. McKay explained that his role was to oversee production in Australia once Lord and Miller left for work on 22 Jump Street (2014). In March 2012, Lord and Miller revealed the film's working title, Lego: The Piece of Resistance. For April 2012, Warner Bros. scheduled the film's release on February 28, 2014, a date that later changed.

Following the success of The Lego Movie, Warner Bros. greenlit several Lego movies produced, including The Lego Ninjago Movie for September 23, 2016, The Lego Batman Movie for September 10, 2017 and The Lego Movie Sequel for May 25, 2018. On October 25, 2014, it was reported that Lord and Miller had signed on to write The Lego Movie Sequel.

On October 30, it was announced that Australia-based animation studio Animal Logic was in talks to produce the next three Lego movies (although the deal was not finalized at the time) and that the New South Wales government would do financial contributions to all films. In March 2015, Warner Bros. confirmed a third spinoff film called The Billion Brick Race, adjusting its release for Summer 2019.

On April 20, 2015, The Lego Ninjago Movie was delayed to September 22, 2017 with Storks assuming the film's original release date. In 2016, the release schedule was adjusted, however, in 2016 the release schedule was further adjusted, moving The Lego Ninjago Movie to September 14, 2018, The Lego Movie Sequel to February 8, 2019, and The Lego Batman Movie to February 10, 2017. A spinoff series called "Unikitty!" Was announced on May 10. 2017. At San Diego Comic-Con 2017, co-showrunner and co-executive producer Ed Skudder confirmed that the series would premiere on Cartoon Network on January 1, 2018.

In 2018, The Billion Brick Race was rescheduled from May 25, 2019 to August 25 of the same year. Additionally, The Lego Movie Sequel was pushed back to April 5, 2019.

On May 21, 2018, Warner Bros. officially renamed the sequel The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part. Before the film's release in 2019, Chris Miller stated that all Lego movies are based on the imagination of a child character, with the events of The Lego Movie in the mind of young Finn. Miller claimed that The Lego Batman Movie, and The Billion Brick Race was also from Finn and Bianca's imagination, although the characters did not appear within the film, although Bianca was alluded to as Phyllis's boss, demonstrating an interconnectedness in the universe, with Ninjago as a popular tale in the fandom that probably reached the ears of Finn, who owned his own sets of the theme.

Also in 2018, a fourth spin-off of The Lego Movie and a untitled sequel to The Lego Batman Movie were announced, both booked for 2022.

In December 2019, Warner Bros began negotiations to redistribute upcoming film properties based on Lego toys thanks to the critical and general financial success of the franchise. In January 2020, Warner Bros announced that they expected future Lego movies to be distributed this time alongside Universal Pictures. In April 2020, the deal was signed between The Lego Group and Warner Bros. for a 9-year limited film deal, which also involved Universal Pictures lending various film rights and taking 20% ​​of the total revenue if one of them appears on screen.

On August 11, 2020, The term "LEGO Extended Universe" was coined by Dan Lin and Christopher Miller as a comparison and parallelism of the DC Extended Universe of the same company, in an interview where he talks about the evolution of the universe up to that moment and other extra details. This term and the abbreviation "LEU" quickly spread to the media and fans. The term began internally to jointly designate the franchise and in May 2020 it was officially confirmed when it was integrated into the official section of HBO Max.

Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures jointly announced in December 2020 that the fourth spin-off, titled, "The Lego Dimensions Movie" would premiere in September 2022, being a super crossover that would reunite the majority of the cast of the previous films in a unique story arc. Some outlets compared the move positively to the established Marvel Cinematic Universe, by crossovering all the franchises after their preview.

By February 2021, Warner Bros. and The Lego Group were developing original television series for the streaming service, which focused on supporting characters from the LEU films up to that point. At the end of 2021, the development of a series derived from The Lego Batman Movie with Chris Mckay at the helm began to be rumored, which ended up being Girls Rule, announced in October 2022. Also in 2021, the name "Wave One" was revealed. to name the set of published media for the franchise, from The Lego Movie in 2014 to The Lego Dimensions Movie and Girls Rule in 2022.

Overview
The first part presents the universe in which the films are set, where they are all handled by real human children through their imagination, as well as the central characters of the stories. Many of the films in Wave One only focus on their own encapsulated plot, but reveal a shared universe that converges in the final film, The Lego Dimensions Movie, which involves the main villains seen in the previous films who are involved in a war that endangers the dimensions, which led to the formation of The Resistance.

Filmograpy
Films and Box Office


 * Note: The first five films were produced as a collaboration between Warner Animation Group and The Lego Group, being distributed only by Warner Bros. Pictures, however, for The Lego Dimensions Movie, Universal Pictures were integrated for the production of the tape as part of a 9-year contract. Only five films were released in IMAX theaters; These include The Lego Movie, The Lego Batman Movie, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, The Billion Brick Race, and The Lego Dimensions Movie. The Lego Ninjago Movie was originally planned for an IMAX release, but it was canceled and only received non-IMAX submissions.


 * 1) The Lego Movie (2014) $468,060,692
 * 2) The Lego Batman Movie (2017) $311,950,384
 * 3) The Lego Ninjago Movie (2018) $261,081,555
 * 4) The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019) $381,656,167
 * 5) The Billion Brick Race (2019) $438,579,114
 * 6) The Lego Dimensions Movie (2022) $756,318,559

Budgets

 * The Lego Movie (2014) Budget: $60,000,000
 * The Lego Batman Movie (2017) Budget: $80,000,000
 * The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019) Budget: $70,000,000
 * The Billion Brick Race (2019) Budget: $80,000,000
 * The Lego Dimensions Movie (2022) Budget: $85,000,000

Series

 * Unikitty! (S-1 2017 - S-4 2022)
 * Girls Rule (S-1 2022)

Trivia

 * Unlike Wave Two, where all of its movies have post-credit scenes, only 2 of the 6 Wave One movies feature one.
 * "The Lego Batman Movie 2" was originally scheduled as the last Wave One movie, to be released in 2022, but was changed to be the second Wave Two movie after several delays.