I adore The LEGO Movie, and I have to admit I was a little bummed that Phil Lord & Christopher Miller weren’t returning to direct The LEGO Movie Sequel. While they remained on board to work on the story and produce, it now looks like they’re fully on board to do a rewrite, and they’re taking the sequel in an incredibly interesting direction.

At the press day for The LEGO Ninjago Movie, Christina Radish spoke to producers Dan Lin and Chris McKay and learned some new details about The LEGO Movie Sequel. The upcoming film will deal with gender issues with regards to how boys play versus how girls play. The first film was from the “perspective” of Finn, an 8-year-old boy, so everything you saw in the movie was from his imagination. At the very end, “Duplo” comes down to destroy them, and those are from his little sister. That provides an opportunity not to make the sister the antagonist, but instead to show how she sees the LEGO world. When you consider how many stories are male-driven and female characters are relegated to supporting roles (even in the first LEGO Movie where Wyldstyle is great, but ultimately Emmet is the hero), I love the opportunity this approach could provide.

Speaking to Lin and McKay, they elaborated on where the sequel is headed, and how it picks up from the events that concluded the last movie:

LIN: We are going to The LEGO Movie 2. The team is all back together, so it’s [Phil] Lord and [Chris] Miller, myself and Chris McKay. Mike Mitchell is the new voice who’s coming in to direct the movie. Chris and Phil are rewriting the script right now, but we’re in production. We’re picking up where the first movie left us, where the Duplo have now come and they’re attacking Bricksburg. It’s several years later, and you’re going to see the result of that.

For those who are unfamiliar with Duplo, they’re basically LEGO for infants. The blocks are huge so that little kids can’t choke on them, but they’re an introduction to LEGO for children who are so young that they might swallow regular LEGO pieces.