For Warner Bros., a ‘Cinematic Universe’ Built of Lego Bricks<br />Each morning, Warner Bros. hosted a yogalike workout (“for the ninja in everyone”) on a lawn<br />that it billed as “ninjoga.” The studio also flew in several actors who voiced characters in the film — Dave Franco, Michael Peña, Kumail Nanjiani and Olivia Munn — for a presentation that included the unveiling of a new trailer set to Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood.”<br />“The key for us is to reach both adults and kids,” Dan Lin, the producer behind the “Lego” movie series, said at the presentation.<br />And now, a short seven months later, comes “Ninjago.”<br />The stakes are high for Warner Bros. Few films on its schedule are more important than “The Lego Ninjago Movie,” which it sees as part of a continuing “cinematic universe”<br />and a pillar for the studio, with additional original installments and sequels exploring different genres planned for the next decade and beyond.<br />“Kids are bouncing from one to another.”<br />Underscoring the importance of “The Lego Ninjago Movie,” Warner Bros.<br />and Lego headed to Comic-Con International, the annual comic book convention in San Diego, over the weekend to mount a full-court press to woo die-hard fans.<br />But a related follow-up to the original, “The Lego Batman Movie,” released in February,<br />took in only $311 million, in part because girls were not as interested.<br />But as both ramp up promotion for the September release of their third film together, “The Lego Ninjago<br />Movie,” some are wondering whether the cinematic landscape is cluttered with too many Lego bricks.
