In today’s era of reboots, spin-offs, sequels, and live-action remakes, studios are looking everywhere to bring franchises with built-in audiences to the big screen. With the massive success of toy-based films like Barbie and Transformers, it was only a matter of time for LEGO Ninjago to be given the same treatment. While the LEGO brand saw a successful theatrical film with The LEGO Movie and its less successful spin-offs, original properties under the LEGO umbrella have not yet been adapted into live-action.
In October 2024, Universal Pictures announced their plans for three new, yet-untitled LEGO movies with Jake Kasdan, Patty Jenkins, and Joe Cornish as respective directors. It was later announced that another film was in development, revealed to be a live-action adaptation of Ninjago, a LEGO original property based around a group of multicolored ninja. While Ninjago was given an animated theatrical film in 2017, the longevity of the animated series and the dedicated fan base proves that there is potential for a great adaptation.
Updated by Jordan Iacobucci on April 11, 2025: Months after its announcement, there is still very little information about the upcoming live-action LEGO Ninjago movie. However, things may be turning against the film long before it even begins production. This article has been updated with the latest information and to adhere to CBR’s current formatting guidelines.
What Is LEGO Ninjago?
The Line Is One of LEGO's Most Popular
The LEGO Group, a massively successful line of construction toys, released their line of LEGO Ninjago sets in 2011, featuring a group of four ninjas with elemental powers. The line was incredibly successful upon release and continues to be one of the brand’s most popular lines to this day, with each year seeing the release of new sets, characters, aesthetics, and ninja suits. The original story of Ninjago followed the four ninja in their fight against the evil Lord Garmadon as they trained to master the martial art of Spinjitzu.
As the line went on, new villains and lore were introduced alongside the tie-in animated series from Cartoon Network, which first aired on January 14, 2011. The series has continued to this day, with fifteen seasons and 210 episodes to its name, with Netflix airing the sequel series Ninjago: Dragons Rising on June 1, 2023, and the final episode of Season 2 airing on July 25, 2024. A third season has officially been announced and is set to premiere in Spring 2025.
Along with the successful line of toys and the animated series, LEGO has gone on to release video games, graphic novels, and books based on Ninjago, with fans ranging from young new fans to adult collectors who have followed the brand since 2011. After the massive success of 2014’s The LEGO Movie and the relatively good success of The LEGO Batman Movie (2017), Warner Bros released 2017’s The LEGO Ninjago Movie, with an all-star cast including Dave Franco as Lloyd the Green Ninja, Kumail Nanjiani as Jay the Blue Ninja, Fred Armisen as Cole the Black Ninja, Olivia Munn as Lloyd’s mother, and Jackie Chan as Master Wu. However, the film did not do as well as previous theatrically released LEGO movies, but a live-action adaptation attempt has the potential to be great if given the right creative team.
Universal Has Announced a Live-Action Ninjago Movie
Writers From the Animated Series Are Set to Return
On October 31, 2024, Deadline reported Universal’s plans for three LEGO films in development. Along with this announcement, they also revealed their plans for the live-action Ninjago adaptation. The film is to be written by the brother duo of Kevin and Dan Hageman, known for their work on Hotel Transylvania and Star Trek Prodigy. The duo both worked on the Ninjago animated series, leaving the project after the ninth season, Hunted. This naturally relieved the hardcore fans, knowing that the people behind the beloved animated series would be in charge of translating the story to the big screen.
The film will be produced under Universal Pictures, with Jill Wilfert and Ryan Christians as producers. Matt Reilly, the Executive Vice President of Production Development at Universal, will run the project alongside the Director of Production Development, Jacqueline Garell. In terms of the plot, no information has yet been revealed, with many fans wondering whether it will adapt the events of the animated series or tell an entirely new story separate from the established canon, as was the case with The LEGO Ninjago Movie.
Many would argue that the hype around LEGO in cinema has died off in the past few years, but the Pharrell Williams biopic Piece by Piece was released on October 11. While the film has only managed to garner a Box Office of $9.5 million on a $16 million budget, it has been praised by critics and viewers, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 84% and an IMDb rating of 7.0, as well as a nomination from the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards for Best Documentary Feature and Best Music Documentary. As the live-action Ninjago project is still in early development, there are currently no actors attached to the film.
What the Live-Action Ninjago Can Learn From the 2017 Movie
The LEGO Ninjago Movie Wasn't as Successful as Previous LEGO Films
While 2017’s The LEGO Ninjago Movie didn’t do financially or critically as well as its predecessors, it still got a lot of aspects of the Ninjago story right. The film chose to ignore the plot of the animated series, which had just finished airing its seventh season, Hands of Time. Rather, they chose to go with the basic premise and write a completely new story. The film mainly followed the Green Ninja Lloyd, who was introduced into the canon a year after the four original ninjas: Kai, Cole, Jay, and Zane. The film featured Lloyd and the other ninja, including Kai’s sister, Nya, as they try to defend Ninjago City from the daily attacks of the evil Lord Garmadon, who happens to be Lloyd’s father, a carried-over storyline from the series.
Other than that, however, the plot hardly resembled the series, with many of the ninjas’ personalities not matching up with their characterizations in the series. The film also chose to ignore most of the lore that had been built up in the seven seasons, which was probably best for the general audience but turned off many devoted fans of the animated series. The film grossed a Box Office of $123.1 million on a $70 million budget, which was disappointing following the Box Office of The LEGO Movie, which grossed $470.7 million on a budget of $60-65 million. However, given that this new adaptation will not be a spin-off of a previous film this time, perhaps it will be more positively received by audiences and critics.
The Animated Series Has Run for 13 Years
There Is Plenty of Lore for the Live-Action to Adapt
If the live-action adaptation chooses to take more inspiration from the animated series, there is a lot of lore to work with. Given the involvement of the Hageman brothers, it’s likely fans can expect some more Ninjago lore that the 2017 movie failed to include. The Ninjago animated brand began with the four pilot episodes that essentially served as the origin story for the ninja. The pilots were followed by six seasons: Rise of the Snakes, Legacy of the Green Ninja, Rebooted, Tournament of Elements, Possession, and Skybound.
2016 saw the release of the Day of the Departed special, followed by another season, Hands of Time. The eighth season, Sons of Garmadon, premiered after the 2017 movie, and LEGO decided to create some synergy between the film and the animated series from this point forward, redesigning the ninja to look more like their movie designs. (which caused some controversy among fans) The series continued for seven more seasons and The Island miniseries in 2021.
While the series was meant to close with Season 15, the sequel series continues on Netflix, introducing new characters with regular reappearances from the original ninja. Given the sheer number of seasons and episodes the animated series has to offer, there is a large amount of canon and lore that many live-action adaptations would be wary of. These include Zane’s revelation that he is actually a robot, Cole’s turn into a ghost in Season 5, and Jay’s turning evil in the most recent season after suffering from memory loss.
What Can Fans Expect From A Ninjago Live-Action Adaptation?
Very Little Has Been Revealed About The Ninjago Movie
It would be unrealistic to assume that all of this lore would be carried over into the adaptation, as this might be the first story set in the Ninjago universe for most of the audience. It would be wise to ease the audience into the universe with as little pre-established lore as possible while still giving something the hardcore fandom would appreciate. It would be interesting if the live-action film adapted the four pilot episodes into one movie, following the ninja as they embark on their first quest together to find the Four Golden Weapons of Spinjitzu in order to defeat the evil Lord Garmadon. Fans would love it if the film ended with some sort of post-credits sequence foreshadowing the arrival of Lloyd the Green Ninja, similar to 2017’s Power Rangers film, which foreshadowed the arrival of Tommy Oliver.
It’s also rather unclear what Universal meant when they announced live-action LEGO projects. Many fans have debated over the meaning of this phrasing, given that taking LEGO characters and putting them into live-action takes away from the LEGO aspect altogether. If Ninjago were to completely remove the LEGO element, many viewers might draw comparisons to Power Rangers, particularly as Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: The Movie featured the Rangers becoming ninja. Overall, Universal’s announcement of their upcoming Ninjago film certainly has fans cautiously curious, but there’s always hope for something fun and fresh to come out of it all.
Fan Reactions Could Spell Disaster for the Live-Action Ninjago Movie
The Tide May Be Turning Against the Live-Action LEGO Ninjago Movie
Hollywood’s live-action remake trend has had its ups and downs in recent years. Despite Disney’s incredible success in films like The Lion King (2019) and Beauty and the Beast (2017), it has also seen a severe downturn in financial returns for other similar movies. Snow White, the studio’s most recent live-action remake, was the subject of intense controversy, resulting in devastatingly poor box office numbers.
In the aftermath, Disney has seemingly paused production on all live-action remakes, including Tangled. Already completed films like Lilo & Stich and Moana may be in trouble as Disney’s audience seems to finally grow tired of seeing rehashings of their favorite childhood movies. Conversely, other studios are only just beginning to jump on the live-action remake bandwagon, with Dreamworks now ramping up promotion for its new How to Train Your Dragon movie, having already greenlit a sequel. It’s anyone’s guess as to how these upcoming films will perform.
Unfortunately for the LEGO brand, fans of the original animated series and the more recent stop-motion movie haven’t been particularly warm to the idea of a live-action Ninjago film. Many fans have expressed an incredulous attitude toward the movie, noting that it will lose the signature charm of other LEGO projects. To call a movie «LEGO» when it features no actual LEGO would be a strange and seemingly unnecessary decision that would alienate viewers. Ultimately, producers may find that the market simply isn’t there for live-action LEGO projects.
