Pharrell, the producer, singer, songwriter and Daft Punk collaborator, is about to bring his life story to the big screen in a way that only he could imagine – via Lego. “Piece by Piece,” which combines more traditional documentary elements with Lego-based animation, is out this fall and the first trailer has just dropped. Watch it above.
In the trailer you see talking head interviews with some of Pharrell’s collaborators, like Snoop Dogg, but they are animated in a perfectly Lego-y way. It looks extremely charming. As the trailer promises, there will be appearances from Justin Timberlake, Gwen Stefani, Kendrick Lamar, Jay-Z and Snoop Dogg. And Neville has promised that Daft Punk (nee Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo), Pharrell’s frequent collaborators, would also make an appearance.
The origins of “Piece by Piece” date back to 2018, when Illumination announced plans to build a film around Williams, who had provided songs and score to the “Despicable Me” films. Eventually that morphed into the Lego project, which will be the first Lego film under Universal’s new exclusive licensing agreement. (Previously, Warner Bros. had released a series of popular Lego films, like “The Lego Movie” and “The Lego Batman Movie.”)
“Piece by Piece” features a different animation style than the earlier Lego movies, owning to Netflix buying studio Animal Logic, who handled the more tactile visuals for those films.
“Pharrell Williams and his creative collective i am OTHER made the film with director Neville’s company Tremolo Productions, Focus Features, Pure Imagination Studios, and creator platform Tongal.”
Watch Lego Pharrell tell his story in “Piece by Piece,” opening on October 11.
