From left: Song of the Sea director Tomm Moore, The Book of Life director Jorge Gutierrez, Laika CEO Travis Knight, Big Hero 6 director Don Hall, How to Train Your Dragon 2 producer Bonnie Arnold and The Lego Movie producer Dan Lin.
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Lin on talks with Warner Bros. and Christopher Nolan about using Batman for The Lego Movie: "As soon as they understood there are different universes, that worked out OK. But that was a big challenge going to all the different rightsholders, saying, 'This is how we're going to take your character and Lego-ize it.' "
"I personally didn't want to scare white people into thinking it was just for Latin people," jokes Gutierrez of one reason for casting Channing Tatum in The Book of Life.
"The robot becomes a surrogate big brother and heals this kid's broken heart," says Hall of Big Hero 6.
"I was excited to see female heroines," says How to Train Your Dragon 2 producer Arnold of Frozen's success.
"If [my co-director] Chris [Williams] and I both agree that we want to do it, [then we will] because it’s really in the director’s hands at Disney," Hall says on the possibility of a Big Hero 6 sequel. "It’s never really a corporate-driven-type thing."
On animated films getting ignored in the bigger Oscar categories: "To me, animation is a technique to tell the story. I wish sometimes we weren't as relegated to the kiddie table, as I feel like we are," says Arnold.
"The sensibility is very much rooted in Dickens and things like Monty Python, which does get into kind of the entrenched class system and all that kind of stuff," Knight says of The Boxtrolls, on which he served as animator and producer. He is also the CEO of animation studio Laika.
Lin on his transition to animation from making live-action films: "We had a whole version of [The Lego Movie] that completely failed, and we threw it out. And I was freaking out, and [co-directors] Chris [Miller] and Phil [Lord] were just like, 'Dan, we gotta hang in there. This is not like live action.' In animation, you don’t finish the movie. You literally just release the movie."
Song of the Sea director Moore on how he feels about sequels: "Well, my favorite movie is Rocky. And I think it’s such a pity that it’s not the only Rocky."
Gutierrez on the Latin market for The Book of Life: "That's the only reason this movie got made — because that audience is exploding, and they were hungry to see themselves."
Lin on selecting Chris Pratt for The Lego Movie: "This process takes a long time, but we cast him three or four years ago. The character is an ordinary person who goes on this extraordinary journey. And I think [after his starring role in Guardians of the Galaxy] the whole world is now seeing Chris Pratt going on this extraordinary journey. So I think that’s really exciting."