One of the biggest surprises of last year was not only the financial success of The Lego Movie, but, on a personal note, how much I enjoyed the film on a pure entertainment level. If I had to point to my favorite thing about the film it would likely be Will Arnett taking on the film’s comically moody version of Batman and with The Lego Batman Movie on the way, we know we’ll be getting more where that came from.
Arnett is back on board to voice the yellow-hued Caped Crusader and it appears Warner Bros. has found his Robin with Variety reporting “Arrested Development” and Superbad star Michael Cera will voice Batman’s most popular sidekick.
The film isn’t set to open until February 10, 2017, but now that Arnett and Cera are teaming up for the project, I have to wonder if any other “Arrested Development” cast members will lend their voices to other characters in the film. I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing someone like David Cross or Tony Hale take on a villain — The Joker or The Riddler, perhaps? — or maybe Portia de Rossi as a snarky version of Catwoman or Jeffrey Tambor as Alfred. Perhaps we can just get an entire cast reunion going here, bring in Jason Bateman, Jessica Walter, Alia Shawkat and of course, Ron Howard to narrate. I’m just saying, I’d go see that.
Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who wrote and directed The Lego Movie, are back to produce Warners’ Lego Batman spinoff, while Seth Grahame-Smith (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) will write the script for director Chris McKay, who supervised the animation on The Lego Movie.
