Chris McKay

Chris McKay (birthname: Christopher McKay) worked as a writer-director-producer-animator-editor of several animated series, including the long-running Robot Chicken (2005-2011), and also for two decades as a feature film editor, starting in 1995 (except for directing and writing indie movie in 2002 titled 2wks, 1yr). McKay then shifted into writing, producing, and directing in 2017 with the sequel, The Lego Batman Movie, for which McKay directed, with the voice cast of Will Arnett, Zach Galifianakis, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson, and Ralph Fiennes, and grossing $312 million worldwide.

That same year, McKay was a lead producer on the other, less successful Lego Movie project, The Lego Ninjago Movie, with the voice cast of Dave Franco, Michael Pena, Fred Armisen, Kumail Nanjiani, Jackie Chan, Justin Theroux, and Olivia Munn, and grossing $123 million just under twice production costs of $70 million. (This actually marked McKay’s third Lego project; he was animation co-director, animation supervisor, and lead editor on The Lego Movie (2014), written and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.)

Chris McKay’s first feature as director of a live-action movie was The Tomorrow War (2021), starring Chris Pratt, J.K. Simmons, and Edwin Hodge, and earning–in a limited Amazon Studios theatrical release pre-streaming–$19.2 million. McKay’s first writing-only feature credit was as a story writer for the script of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023), co-written by Michael Gilio and co-directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley.

McKay was director and a lead producer (with story writer Robert Kirkman, David Alpert, Bryan Furst, and Sean Furst) on the Dracula-themed Renfield (2023), starring Nicolas Cage, Nicholas Hoult, and Awkwafina, released by Universal Pictures as part of the studio’s revived project to remake their classic horror movie library.