LEGO has been part of our lives for over 80 years as a brick building toy that has supercharged the imaginations of kids (and adults) around the world. Having gained popularity in recent years, thanks to licensed (Star Wars, Marvel, D.C.) and original (Legends of Chima, Ninjago) themed sets, with unique storylines, they gradually started animating the toys in TV shows and video games. So the world was primed for The LEGO Movie when it was released in 2014. It was so full of humor, adventure, heart and amazing pop culture references that it was immediately a massive hit and left us wanting more.

Fortunately, we know that more is coming. The LEGO Batman Movie comes out in February 2017, followed by Ninjago next September, and then both The LEGO Movie 2 and Billion Brick Race in 2019. Surely they can squeeze more great titles in there over the next few years! Here we’re offering up our best suggestions. Our only rule is that if a licensed property is involved, it has to be one LEGO has worked with.

From stand-alones to sequels, prequels and mash-ups, here are the 15 LEGO Movies We Want To See Next.

15. LEGO WIZARDS

The LEGO universe is bursting with iconic wizards, so let's put the best of them in one magical movie. We're talking The LEGO Movie’s Vitruvius, The Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit’s Gandalf and young Harry Potter himself. But it's not just another old wizard flick. This is a buddy cop movie, à la Lethal Weapon. You have the young hotshot in Potter next to Vitruvius, the tired old wizard a day away from retirement (and voiced by Morgan Freeman, who has played his share of older cops). Then you have Gandalf in the “police chief” role, trying to keep the other two in line.

Dare we also include a “super dark wizard” team as their foes? Sure, why not? But let’s put a LEGO Movie twist on the dark side of this equation, too. We’ll have President/Lord Business as the leader of a trio featuring LOTR’s Saruman and Potter’s Voldemort. Saruman is used to having a boss, in Sauron, so he would be the teacher’s pet, always sucking up to Business, while Voldemort would be the bad boy rebel who’d rather be on his own, but needs the other two to get to Potter. Oh, and we know, (spoiler alert!) Vitruvius died in The LEGO Movie. But he came back as a hilarious ghost. Besides, this is all a fantasy and could easily have taken place before the time of The LEGO Movie.

14. LEGO STAR WARS

LEGO has already done an admirable job of creating exciting and hilarious non-canon Star Wars stories that often revolve around the action of the films. There were stand-alone shows like The Padawan Menace and The Empire Strikes Out, great miniseries in The Yoda Chronicles and Droid Tales, and, most recently, the Disney XD series The Freemaker Adventures, which focuses on new characters, with some favorites thrown in.

Among the greatest elements of these shows are the in-jokes peppered throughout, for die-hard fans of that galaxy far, far away. So we’d love to see them explore that kind of humor within a new story over the course of 90 minutes. The writers over there are brilliant, so we’re not even going to attempt to undermine them by suggesting anything specific, we just want to see what they’d do with a feature film. Well, maybe one thing: we want more of The Empire Strikes Out’s hilarious “sibling rivalry” between grumpy Darth Vader and bombastic Darth Maul.

13. LEGO FRIENDS

Back in 2012, LEGO developed a new line to target girls, LEGO Friends. Much like their Legends of Chima and Ninjago lines, it takes place in its own universe with its own unique characters and figures that, somewhat controversially, are not traditional LEGO minifigures – they’re less blocky and more human-looking, lacking the unique cupped hands and round head. In fact, they’re called mini-dolls.

The series LEGO Friends: The Power of Friendship debuted on Netflix this year, so the plot of the film would have to revolve around the group of friends depicted in the show: Stephanie, Olivia, Emma, Mia and Andrea. Surely the girls who love the sets and the series would be all over a movie, but what about the parents? How do we hook them into this? With a Friends reunion, that’s how. It doesn’t seem like the full cast of the ‘90s megahit sitcom is going to reunite any time soon in live action, but what about LEGO-fying them, with the voices of the actors? They could be hanging out in the series’ cafe, City Park Cafe, just like they did at Central Perk. Their presence would be secondary, but it would be fun to have them pop up from time to time throughout the movie, pushing the plot along in small ways.

12. LEGO MINECRAFT

We already know that the world of the super-popular video game Minecraft is going to hit the silver screen on May 24, 2019. In fact, there are some interesting people behind it in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star Rob McElhenney (reported to be the director) and, especially interesting for our purposes, The LEGO Movie co-producer Roy Lee is on board to co-produce this one as well.

LEGO has been producing Minecraft-themed sets since 2012, so maybe Lee could hop on to an animated LEGO film of the game as well. It actually might even be a more suitable translation to the big screen than live action for this particular game, considering its blocky, pixelated style. Either way, it could be a difficult translation because there’s really no storyline in the game, you can create your own story and worlds. On the other hand, it hands the writers free reign to create some crazy plot where a zombie pig man and an enderman star in a buddy cop movie or Steve embarks on a philosophical quest to figure out who and what he actually is.

11. LEGO DISNEY VILLAINS

There’s clearly a relationship between LEGO and Disney. They have longstanding relationships with Marvel and Star Wars, both now Disney properties, and most recently LEGO has LEGO-fied more traditional Disney characters, with the LEGO Disney Minifigure Series released this year. It features beloved characters like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Stitch and Ariel, but also a couple of the greatest villains in Disney history: Peter Pan’s Captain Hook and Sleeping Beauty’s wicked Maleficent.

So here’s the plan for the LEGO Disney Villains movie: We take those two baddies and throw in Cruela de Vil (One Hundred and One Dalmatians), Snow White’s Evil Queen, Jafar from Aladdin, the Queen of Hearts (Alice in Wonderland) and The Lion King’s Scar, to name a few. And they all come together to embark on a Suicide Squad style adventure, forced to work together in their own inimitable and nefarious ways.

10. LEGO DUPLO ALIENS

At the end of The LEGO Movie, just when it looked like the good guys had won and all was right in the LEGO universe, along came three aliens made from LEGO’s larger preschool cousin, DUPLO. And, despite the cute little girl voice, they were not friendly. They declared, “We are from the planet DUPLO and we are here to destroy you.”

Rather foreboding, to say the least. Because of where it was situated, right at the end of the movie, it even felt like a teaser or cliffhanger for the sequel, which is scheduled to hit theaters in 2019. We don’t know anything about the plot of the sequel yet, currently being rewritten by BoJack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg, but maybe this is the direction they’re headed, with Emmet and Wildstyle/Lucy taking on toddler-talking extra terrestrials. And you know Benny would get another shot at building a rad spaceship for a crazy outer-space battle scene.

9. CLOUD CUCKOO LAND ORIGIN STORY

The LEGO Movie took place in a few fascinating and vibrant settings, bursting with LEGO life. There was the city of Bricksburg, the Old West, the sea, Middle Zealand and, of course, Cloud Cuckoo Land. Unikitty provides quite the in-depth description of her home of Cloud Cuckoo Land: “There are no rules. There’s no government, no babysitters, no bedtimes, no frowny faces, no bushy mustaches, and no negativity of any kind…” She goes on to add, “Any idea is a good idea. Except the not happy ones. Those, you push down deep inside where you’ll never, ever, ever, ever find them.”

She says the latter with a certain amount of repressed hostility. So, clearly, as much as its citizens want to believe it’s a utopia where everyone is happy all the time, there’s clearly a darkness lurking beneath. Of course there is – life just isn’t all happy face emojis and sunshine, so it’s obvious that they (Unikitty in particular) have repressed a lot of negative emotions that need to come out. So let’s see a movie that explores what happened to make Cloud Cuckoo Land what it was. Was there some terrible event that led everyone to just block it out and wear a fake smile all the time? Maybe there’s some darkness in Unikitty’s past that she can’t own up to that led to the creation of that colorful place.

8. LEGO THE WIZARD OF OZ

Although the idea of creating full LEGO The Wizard of Oz sets has been suggested by fans and considered by the company, the classic film’s involvement has been relegated only to the Dimensions video game. You can purchase the Wicked Witch of the West minifigure and her winged monkey and play them in the game, where there’s a playable Oz area. You see other Oz characters in the game, but you can’t play as them.

So what would a LEGO The Wizard of Oz movie look like? We wouldn’t necessarily want to simply recount the classic story in LEGO animation. Surely there’s something more creative we can do with that. There’s always the option of doing a Gregory Maguire (author of the original novel version of Wicked) style backstory involving the Wicked Witch of the West and her sister, the Wicked Witch of the East. Or maybe we could see what would have happened if The LEGO Movie’s Emmet landed in Oz instead of Dorothy.

7. LEGO MONSTER FIGHTERS

Monster Fighters was an unfortunately short-lived LEGO theme that was both released and discontinued in 2012. We can’t help but wonder where it went wrong. After all, it’s loaded with everybody’s favorite monsters: a Dracula-style vampire called Lord Vampyre, The Mummy, The Werewolf, The Swamp Creature, The Monster (think Frankenstein’s monster), The Crazy Scientist and assorted ghosts and skeletons.

So let’s spark this theme back up and breathe some new life into it. Granted, Hotel Transylvania has already done that kind of thing with the subject matter, but there are plenty of possibilities with characters as enduring as these. And the original storyline echoed the 1987 cult classic Monster Squad pretty heavily, so maybe best to go with a complete reboot. Maybe this time it’s not so much a good vs. evil scenario (in the original, the “good guys” were the titular monster fighters, trying to stop the baddies from taking over the world), but more of an evil vs. evil storyline, with two factions of bad guys vying for dominance – the monsters themselves are the monster fighters.

6. LEGO JURASSIC PARK

When we say “LEGO Jurassic Park,” we’re referring not necessarily to just the original movie, but to the entire Jurassic franchise, right up to 2015’s Jurassic World. There’s no reason that you couldn’t, in an animated LEGO movie, jump back to 1993 and forward to the present day, or even combine characters from all eras of the franchise.

Thanks to the popularity of Jurassic World, you’d have to include Chris Pratt’s character, Owen Grady, in a LEGO Jurassic Park movie, which could create some funny in-jokes about how he also voiced The LEGO Movie’s protagonist, Emmet. Maybe Emmet could make a cameo and there could be a, “Hey, you sound like me!”/“No, you sound like me!” standoff. And where the most recent Jurassic movie failed to bring back Jeff Goldblum’s awesome character, Dr. Ian Malcolm, we absolutely have to see Goldblum in LEGO form, voicing his character.

5. LEGO DISNEY PRINCESSES

So we have the LEGO Friends movie targeting girls and the LEGO Disney Villains movie banking on the Disney name. Now let’s combine the two into a LEGO Disney Princesses movie. “LEGO Disney Princess” is a thing, a theme introduced in 2012 and evolved in 2014 to take the mini-doll form introduced with Friends. It features all your classic Disney princesses: Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Ariel, Rapunzel and Merida (Brave).

So that much has been established. But, much like with Friends, we need some sort of hook to reach a broader audience. And that hook is Bridesmaids. Okay, we realize there’s no way Disney would let us get too raunchy with their perennial moneymakers, and we’re not out to tarnish the brand. But it would be so much fun to use these characters to echo some of the great female-fronted comedies of our time like that Kristin Wiig vehicle and Clueless, and even satirizing beloved franchises that are ripe for it, like Sex and the City, The Bachelor/Bachelorette or the Real Housewives franchise. Plus, this could be the perfect opportunity to finally welcome Princess Leia into the sorority of Disney princesses.

4. LEGO BACK TO THE FUTURE MEETS DOCTOR WHO

Get ready for a time-travel-palooza! LEGO has worked with two of the greatest time-travel properties of all time with their Dimensions video game portal system, in Back to the Future and Doctor Who, so they'd make a perfect pair in a future LEGO movie. Most of the main actors from Back to the Future are still with us, so we'd get Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd and company back (although they might be the only necessary actors) to voice Marty McFly and Doc Brown.

But here's the super cool part. This is animation we’re talking about, so anything is possible. Which means we could have all 12 (or 13) doctors in one movie! They could regenerate from scene to scene, totally confusing Marty and Doc. And how about a time travel race between the DeLorean and the Tardis? Who could get to 2035 fastest to save Marty's grandson from being obliterated by Daleks?

3. 1980's SPACE LEGO

For our money, Benny was the standout supporting character in The LEGO Movie – after Batman, of course. Always bursting with unbridled enthusiasm, and just dying to build a mega spaceship, Benny was a 1980's-style Space LEGO minifigure, complete with time-tested cracked helmet. He was like a hyperactive eight-year old saying "Look what I can do!" when he introduced himself to the main gang shouting, "Hi! I'm Ben, but you can call me Benny, and I can build a Spaceship! Watch!"

So how about bringing that manic energy to reveal Benny's backstory in a film set in the world of '80s Space LEGO, with a crew of red, white, yellow and black-suited astronauts. Blue astronaut Benny could be the team's rookie who causes a cataclysmic situation but saves the day in the end thanks to his boundless imagination. Or maybe he's not even a rookie. Maybe he's a stowaway who always dreamed of being an astronaut but failed training, who saves the day. Let's face it, any way you slice it Benny has to save the day.

2. LEGO GHOSTBUSTERS MEETS SCOOBY-DOO

Back in the day, Scooby-Doo cartoons were all about Scooby and the gang meeting celebrities and fictional favorites: From Laurel and Hardy to Batman and Robin, from The Three Stooges to the Harlem Globetrotters. More recently, they even went to space with KISS. Add to all this the fact that the gang in Mystery Inc. were busting ghosts and other creepy villains long before Egon and company set up shop in the Big Apple. That makes Scooby-Doo and the Ghostbusters a perfect match.

The thing about Scooby-Doo is that every episode and movie hinges on the reveal that the supernatural evil turns out to be some crankypants using lights, mirrors and costumes to dupe everyone into being scared. Imagine the reactions of scaredy cats Scooby and Shaggy when Mystery Inc. is recruited by the Ghostbusters (voiced by the original 1984 cast, minus the dear departed Harold Ramis) and realize that they can't pull a mask off these ghosts – they're the real deal. And Fred can do his hilariously cornball jealous schtick while Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) flirts with Daphne. Plus, Egon and Velma can totally get their nerd on together. Oh, and there absolutely has to be a scene where an unmasked bad guy declares, “And I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids…” And then he awkwardly adds, “...and strange adult men in jumpsuits.”

1. LEGO MARVEL VS. D.C.

Would Marvel and DC dare to square off in one mega comic book movie? Who knows? But LEGO does work with both comic giants, making toys, video games (LEGO Avengers, LEGO Batman) and even short movies featuring members of the Avengers and Justice League. But never have the two mixed. Not even in The LEGO Movie, which featured D.C. heroes like Batman, Superman and Green Lantern, but no Spider-Man or Wolverine or other Marvel favorites.

Of course, a DC-Marvel crossover is not unprecedented. There was the four-issue Marvel vs. DC comic book series in 1996, which featured battles like Superman vs Hulk, Captain America vs Batman and Storm vs Wonder Woman. Producers could even borrow from that series’ storyline, where gods representing each universe send their best heroes to battle to become the last comic universe standing. Or it might be even more interesting to see how some heroes from the two sides band together, while others don’t get along at all.

 

The LEGO Batman Movie opens in U.S. theaters on February 10th, 2017, followed by Ninjago on September 22nd, 2017, The LEGO Movie 2 on February 8, 2019, and Billion Brick Race on May 24th, 2019.