Anais Gutierrez
‘The Lego Ninjago Movie’ arrived in theaters on Friday. The latest installment in the Lego movie franchise this time brings an adventure filled with kung-fu and comedy.
Starring Jackie Chan, Dave Franco and Olivia Munn, the movie was expected to make big revenues during its opening weekend, only behind ‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle.’
Going full ninja
Finally, the latest Lego adventure premiered in theaters on Friday with a film directed by Charlie Bean.
The story focuses on a young boy who ventures into an old relic shop, he meets the mysterious Mr. Liu (Jackie Chan), who decides to tell him the legend of Ninjago.
The entire city despises Lloyd because of his secret connections with Garmadon, which puts Lloyd into emotional stress. Lloyd is secretly a ninja along with his friends Kai, Jay, Nya, Cole, and Zane.
On his birthday Garmadon comes to attack the city once again and a battle is set loose in the city once more.
The film is written by Logan, Fisher, William Wheeler, Tom Wheeler, Jared Stern and John Whittington, and comes with a huge star-studded cast.
Giving voices to the characters are Dave Franco, Justin Theroux, Fred Armisen, Abbi Jacobson, Olivia Munn, Kumail Nanjiani, Michael Peña, Zach Woods and Jackie Chan.
Based on the Lego Ninjago toy line. It’s an international co-production of the United States and Denmark, the first theatrical film to be based on an original Lego property, and the second spin-off installment of ‘The Lego Movie’ as well as the first theatrical film based on a Cartoon Network series since 2002’s ‘The Powerpuff Girls Movie’.
It was released in the United States on September 22, 2017, by Warner Bros. Pictures.
Fighting the box office
This is, without a doubt, an unusually strong September at the box office.
Thanks go mostly to ‘It,’ which charged out of the starting gate for Warner Bros. and New Line as a record-breaking hit two weekends ago with $123 million domestic.
Last weekend it easily stayed on top of the North American charts with $60 million. But now, Pennywise the clown has tough competition from two new releases — Fox’s ‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle,’ and ‘The Lego Ninjago Movie’ from Warner Bros.
The sequel to ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’ looks like the leader of the pack. It’s tracking with a wide-ish margin in the $40 million from more than 4,000 locations.
That would be an improvement on the original, which had a domestic opening of $36.2 million. Foreign grosses boosted the first ‘Kingsman’ to become a global hit, and it finished its run with $414.4 million worldwide.
Another strong entry, the latest installment in the Lego cinematic universe, ‘Ninjago,’ was also targeting a wide margin somewhere in the $30millions from 4,000 theaters.
The franchise has historically posted impressive figures for Warner Bros. The first ‘Lego Movie‘ opened to $69.1 million in February of 2014.
And ‘The Lego Batman Movie‘ opened earlier this year to $53 million, ending its run as the highest grossing movie of the winter with $175.8 million.
Finally, there’s also the horror entry ‘Friend Request,’ from Entertainment Studios.
According to tracking, it’s a bit of a bust, targeting between $2 million and $5 million. The distributor, however optimistically believes it should pull in between $8 million and $10 million from 2,550 locations. The project has a budget of just under $10 million.
Theater premiere and video game launch
Lego fans, rejoice! Friday marked the launch of ‘The LEGO NINJAGO Movie Video Game’ on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Steam. This launch coincides with ‘The LEGO Ninjago Movie’ which also released in theaters on the same day.
“With new, powerful combat moves, players can jump into the action with adrenaline pumping fighting sequences that let them jump higher, kick harder, swing further and defy gravity to conquer their enemies,” read Friday’s press release.
“Players can master the art of Ninja-agility by running on walls, high-jumping and battling foes of NINJAGO to rank up and upgrade the ninja’s combat skills, and traverse across NINJAGO Island fluidly with parkour-like moves.”
As players progress, they unlock new combat skills and abilities. These allow for the mastery of “Spinjitzu” which will helps with dispatching the game’s various hordes of enemies.
Each ninja can unlock new combat techniques, moves, and elemental powers along with upgradeable weapons. All of these can be combined throughout the game.
The game features eight open-world levels. Not only are they based on locations from the movie, but also from the LEGO NINJAGO TV series.
Places like NINJAGO City and NINJAGO Island contain many hidden items to collect. They also have unique Challenge Dojos where players can test their combat skills by battling against waves of increasingly challenging foes.
On top of that, the game’s Battle Maps allow players to face off against one another in three different game modes. These modes feature competitive split-screen local gameplay for up to four players.
Source: NY Times
