Producer Dan Lin explains why LEGO brand movies work

Dan Lin, producer of The LEGO Movie and The LEGO Batman Movie, has been continuing a packed interview schedule to promote the LEGO film franchise. He was recently asked about why this animated film formula works so well for the LEGO brand, but can’t necessarily be emulated for other brands.

Lin, who conceptualised The LEGO Movie and pitched in to the LEGO Group, told Ad Week:

You’d be shocked at the brands that have come to me and asked me to Lego-ize their brand, and I have to tell them that every brand can’t be Lego-ized. We’re working with a handful of brands, and only a few select brands can be Lego-ized. In my mind, they have to have great brand equity.

He elaborated by explaining how he and his team put in the time to truly understand the LEGO brand before embarking on the original feature.

We spent a lot of time getting under the skin of the brand. So we went to Billund, and we went to the original theme park. We went to the museum. We went to all the different conventions. We went to Legoland in Carlsbad. We photographed Legoland in Carlsbad in the mini-land section, crawled down on our hands and knees and shot it as if we were looking at it from the ground level. We spent time with master builders talking about what they do. We spent so much time living, breathing, drinking the brand that we knew everything about it before we started creating. That’s really important.

The LEGO Batman Movie is now on general release. The LEGO Batman Movie range of LEGO sets are currently available to buy at shop.LEGO.com.