Everything isn’t quite as awesome as Warner Bros. would have been hoping for with The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part, with the follow-up to 2014 animated hit opening soft at the box office with a global weekend haul of just $53.2 million.
In North America, the sequel topped the box office ahead of competition from What Men Want ($19 million) and Cold Pursuit ($10.8 million), but its $35 million haul was well down from tracking estimates of between $45 and $60 million, and almost 50% lower than its predecessor.
Internationally, The Second Part pulled in an additional $18.2 million from 63 markets, where it was comfortably beaten by Universal’s animated offering How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World ($38.2 million from 46 markets).
With a budget of $100 million, not including marketing costs, it looks like The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part is going to struggle to turn a profit, and with last year’s The LEGO Ninjago Movie failing to set the box office alight, it remains to be seen how much life is left in The LEGO Movie franchise.
We heard last year that development is underway on a sequel to The LEGO Batman Movie, while WB has also had another spinoff entitled The Billion Brick Race in the works for some time now, although it lost its director last year.
“The LEGO® Movie 2” reunites the heroes of Bricksburg in an all new action-packed adventure to save their beloved city. It’s been five years since everything was awesome and the citizens are facing a huge new threat: LEGO DUPLO® invaders from outer space, wrecking everything faster than they can rebuild. The battle to defeat them and restore harmony to the LEGO universe will take Emmet, Lucy, Batman and their friends to faraway, unexplored worlds, including a strange galaxy where everything is a musical. It will test their courage, creativity and Master Building skills, and reveal just how special they really are.
The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part is directed by Mike Mitchell (The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water) and Trisha Gum and features a voice cast that includes Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy) as Emmet Brickowski and Rex Dangervest, Elizabeth Banks (The Hunger Games) as Wyldstyle, Will Arnett (Arrested Development) as LEGO Batman, Alison Brie (Glow) as Unikitty, Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation) as Metal Beard, Channing Tatum (21 Jump Street) as Superman, Jonah Hill (21 Jump Street) as Green Lantern, Stephanie Beatriz (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) as Sweet Mayhem, Arturo Castro (Broad City) as Ice Cream Cone, Tiffany Haddish (Girls Trip) as Queen Watevra Wa-Nabi, Jason Momoa (Justice League) as Aquaman, Gal Gadot (Justice League) as Wonder Woman and Margot Robbie (Suicide Squad) as Harley Quinn.
