As if the news of the second LEGO Movie couldn’t get any better, YouTube has teamed up with Warner Bros. for a Black Friday publicity move, streaming The LEGO Movie for free this week – for one day only! On the back of yesterday’s release of the full trailer, the team-up is a promotional stirring up hype for the sequel, which will be released in February.
According to The Verge, The LEGO Movie in its entirety will be accessible via a trailer for the LEGO Movie 2: by clicking a secondary option once you’ve hit play, you’ll be able to watch the whole thing for free. Because the movie will be playing as an ad, it won’t feature any additional ads. Awesome!
As well as encouraging users to sign up for music and video subscriptions, YouTube has already been offering a handful of Hollywood releases in a similar fashion. Uploaded by YouTube Movies, a number of movies come under the ‘Free to Watch’ banner. These ‘Free With Ads’ movies are good to know about – however, as the name implies, all of these movies feature ads throughout.
This is what makes Friday’s streaming event stand out – since the movie itself will be playing as an ad, there’ll be no annoying popups. You might argue that The LEGO Movie is a giant advertising stunt for the entire LEGO conglomerate, and you’d be correct. But I’m not complaining. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s one of the most wholesome kids’ franchises out there. As well as fantastic casting, the writing is near-perfect, and I genuinely still get caught out by that Star Wars cameo despite the fact that the movie’s nearly five years old and I’ve seen it a hundred times.
Besides, this new advertising model – angling movies as ads, so as to slide in a bit of pre-release publicity – could have the added benefit of catching up new viewers and getting them invested before the release of the sequel. Though why anyone wouldn’t have wanted to see it yet, I don’t know.
The LEGO Movie will be available on YouTube from midnight PST on November 23rd, until midnight PST on November 24th.
YouTube Will Stream The LEGO Movie Free as an Ad for the Sequel [The Verge]
