Batman movie, and more new Lego screen productions

Love the deadpan, bat-punning, too cool Batman of The Lego Movie? Well good news, forget all the big live-action Batman movies, the future of this character lies in a new Lego movie, Lego Batman, which will see Will Arnett reprising his role from The Lego Movie.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, this new film in the developing Lego movie franchise is being fast-tracked into production, and is set to be the third Lego movie, due for release in 2017, after the Ninjago movie in 2016. As a result The Lego Movie 2 will likely be pushed back to later than the originally planned 2017 release.

Chris McKay, the animation supervisor on The Lego Movie, is set to direct a screenplay by Seth Grahame-Smith. Roy Lee, Dan Lin, Phil Lord, and Christopher Miller, will be producing, in their roles overseeing the Lego movie franchise.

If 2017 seems a long way off, fear not, as Lego Batman is also returning to the small screen in the coming weeks, in a new one-off animation, Batman Be-Leaguered, which as the name implies, also features various Justice League characters. Here's the blurb (via Comic Book Movie):

Batman prides himself on being a loner, a totally self-sufficient one-man-band. Just ask anyone; Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing, Alfred… anyone. So, he is understandably irritated when his nightly cleanup of Gotham City villains is interrupted by Superman, who pesters Batman to join his new superhero team, The Justice League. After Batman makes it quite clear to the Man of Steel that his invitation has been declined, Superman flies off disappointed… whereupon he is overcome with a strange energy and vanishes!

This new animation looks to be in the same vein as the previous Lego Batman: The Movie - DC Super Heroes Unite, and is also set for release just in time to support the release of the third Lego Batman video game. Continue after the jump for a look at the trailer for this, plus even more news of Lego on TV:



This is just the latest in a run of TV specials for Lego, but they have bigger plans for the small screen too it seems. According to The Guardian, Lego are looking to develop a reality TV series, focusing on master builders. Lego's Jill Wilfert, talking at a TV conference, said that Lego is:

...exploring some reality competition show formats, which is new for us: the idea of becoming a Master Builder is something we think could be quite resonating.

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