It's got Batman. It's got Superman. It's got Wonder Woman. It's got Lego. I sat down with The Lego Movie's animation director Chris McKay.

The movie opened strongly in the United States taking $A76.7 million on it's opening weekend and it's since taken more than $400 million worldwide with a large proportion of the audience being adults.

Animation director Chris McKay says Warner Bros gave the Animal Logic team a lot of latitude with the film because of the team’s passion for Lego. 

"On the one hand they were expecting us to sort of push the envelope a little bit," says Mr McKay. "They understood what we were trying to do."

The film is filled with pop-culture references but many of them are in the background - a style which Mr McKay says pays homage to the style of movies like 'Who framed Roger Rabbit'.

To many people The Lego Movie might feel like a stop motion film but it’s all computer generated. Mr McKay says the animators paid particular attention to things like camera movement and lighting to apply real world limitations to their 3D animation.

"[We] put the camera in places that on a set only the camera could go... put the lights in a place that only the lights could go" says Mr McKay. "That gave it a very realistic feeling."

The Lego Movie was made locally at Animal Logic in Sydney - the studio known for its work on films like Happy Feet.

But despite film being made in Australia we're one of the last countries to see it in cinema.

Mr McKay says he wished The Lego Movie could have been shown here earlier.

"I understand the frustration, I've felt it myself," says Mr McKay. "Top to bottom this movie was made here in Australia."

"There's nothing I wanted more than to show this to the people that made it."