Warner Bros. is moving forward with a new LEGO Movie spin-off The Billion Brick Race, bringing in The Book of Life director Jorge Gutierrez to develop the project. We first heard of this movie back in 2015, when the studio brought on Jason Segel to develop and co-direct the movie with Iron Man 3 writer Drew Pearce, based on original idea Drew Pearce pitched which reportedly "excited" the studio. It doesn't seem like Jason Segel or Drew Pearce are involved, with the studio not revealing any details about the project thus far.

The Hollywood Reporter broke the news earlier today, although it isn't clear if he will develop the story based on Jason Segel and Drew Pearce's work, or if he's starting over from scratch with a page-one rewrite. It also hasn't been clarified if he's developing this project with the intention to direct as well, but this animated LEGO spin-off is still in very early stages of development. Still, with the success of the first spin-off, The LEGO Batman Movie ($175.7 million domestic, $311.7 million worldwide, $80 million budget) and the upcoming The LEGO Ninjago Movie hitting theaters this fall, it's clear Warner Bros. is still looking to expand their LEGO empire.

While The LEGO Batman Movie featured characters like Batman (Will Arnett), Superman (Channing Tatum) and Green Lantern (Jonah Hill) return from The LEGO Movie, it doesn't seem that the second spin-off, The LEGO Ninjago Movie, will have any characters from the flagship movie in that adventure. With that being said, it isn't clear if The Billion Brick Race will bring back any primary characters from The LEGO Movie like Emmet (Chris Pratt), Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), Princess Uni-Kitty (Alison Brie), Spaceman Benny (Charlie Day) or Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman), just to name a few. Since no story details have been confirmed, it's impossible to determine who will be featured in this story.

What's also unclear is when Warner Bros. plans on releasing The Billion Brick Race. The LEGO Ninjago Movie will hit theaters on September 22, 2017, with The LEGO Movie Sequel arriving on February 8, 2019. It's possible that, if this project is put on the fast track and is put together quickly by Warner Bros. that it could be ready for release in late 2019, but it seems likely that it wont hit theaters until 2020 or later, but that all depends on how quickly this project moves forward in development. We hadn't heard any developments on this project since Jason Segel signed on back in 2015, so it may also be a long road ahead.

While there is still much we don't know about The Billion Brick Race, it is certainly in good hands with a talented animation veteran like Jorge Gutierrez, whose beloved Book of Life movie was released in 2014, produced by Guillermo del Toro. He also created the animated series El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, and wrote the script for Guardians of Oz. He is also in pre-production on Kung Fu Space Punch, which he is also writing and directing. Hopefully we'll have more on The Billion Brick Race in the near future.