Phil Lord and Christopher Miller: The Lego Movie

In the two weeks since The Lego Movie first hit theaters, it has made about $140 million at the box office. This kind of success is a far cry from writing/directing team Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's first collaboration, Clone High, which was a cult classic but was canceled before the end of its first season. The animated series, a Dawson's Creek-style satire about a group of clones of historical figures going through high school, rustled some feathers with people in India who disapproved of the show's portrayal of a high-school Gandhi. Some even started a hunger strike in protest. Even though MTV canceled the show, the creative freedom Lord and Miller were granted was a huge learning curve. Now they're making feature films, including Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and 21 Jump Street. They talk about telling stories that are outlandish but emotionally grounded, and what it was like to grow up a nerd before the internet made it cool.

Banner image: (L-R) Christopher Miller, Elizabeth Banks, and Phil Lord in the recording studio. Photo by Eric Charbonneau.