One of the most enjoyable aspects of The LEGO Movie was the inclusion of several members of the Justice League, from Batman (who had a substantial role) to Wonder Woman, Superman, and Green Lantern. Of course, the DC heroes aren’t the only ones who have been immortalized in LEGO form, as their rivals over at Marvel have enjoyed just as much success in video games and LEGO sets for a wide array of characters, like the Avengers, X-Men, Spider-Man and even the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Many fans were hoping that the Marvel characters could make an appearance in the upcoming LEGO Movie sequel, which would mark the first big-screen crossover between Marvel and DC. However, as exciting as that would be, Phil Lord and Chris Miller (who directed the first film but will only act as executive producers for the sequel) revealed that that isn’t likely to happen any time soon.
When asked in a recent interview with Coming Soon if there were any chances of the Marvel heroes making an appearance, they said:
Lord, laughing: Well, Marvel seems to be doing fine on their own…
Miller: They don’t need LEGO to make their movies successful.
Lord: It’s really hard to convince a company, especially business affairs, to do something because it would be “cool” or “fun,” do you know what I mean? It takes a lot of effort.
Miller: And The LEGO Movie definitely had a lot of behind the scenes legal business-affairs-wrangling to get all the stuff that we had in our movie.
Lord: But we hope so, you know, like hopefully it’ll just be like another Roger Rabbit situation where [Marvel would say] “Of course we want to be a part of this,” but who knows.
So, the dynamic directing duo definitely haven’t ruled out the idea completely. Lord was smart to bring up Roger Rabbit, because that film faced a similar situation. Though the rights to all of the beloved characters were dispersed across several studios, the filmmakers somehow managed to get everyone on board with the concept in order to allow certain crossovers, which made for an incredible moviegoing experience.
Things are a bit different in today’s world though, where these superhero franchises have billions of dollars worth of potential earnings on the line, so striking some kind of deal between Marvel and DC would be no easy feat. Plus, The LEGO Movie franchise and the DC characters are both owned by Warner Bros., and I doubt that the studio would want to help out their chief rival by letting some of their characters into their movie, no matter how “cool” or “fun” it would be for fans (and kids, who don’t know or care about these rights issues).
You can check out the video interview with Lord and Miller below. Once you do, tell us, would you like to see Marvel characters in a LEGO Movie sequel or spin-off someday? Let us know in the comments section.