piece by piece, pharrell williams’ biopic comes to life and theaters entirely as a LEGO movie

Pharrell william’s ‘piece by piece’ movie is made entirely in LEGO

Pharrell Williams’ animated biopic Piece by Piece comes together as a LEGO movie, hitting theaters on October 11th, 2024. It’s not unusual for artists to have documentaries made about them, but retelling someone’s life and career entirely in LEGO blocks might be. The Pharrell Williams biopic journeys through his life, starting from the ground up. He taps some of the most recognizable names in the industry, with whom he has also worked in real life, including Gwen Stefani, Kendrick Lamar, Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Busta Rhymes, Jay-Z, and Snoop Dogg. In the trailer, Pharrell Williams bares himself open, and LEGO translates what he feels into a technicolor dreamscape.

He says he was called an odd kid growing up, and the LEGO movie shows his head inside a fishbowl, playing with a plane, but when he turns around, all the kids are gone. The musician and Louis Vuitton’s Men’s Creative Director finds music mesmerizing and says that he can see hues of light beaming through when he listens to it, so the LEGO movie puts him in a living room with TV-like speakers blasting rays of colors at him, tugging him into a vortex of psychedelic trance. From then on, the movie becomes even more vibrant, filled with details underlined by LEGO blocks. And Pharrell Williams—his music, his life, and his narration—sits at the center of it all.

all video stills courtesy of Focus Features, via Youtube

Movie poster referencing the musician’s career

The musician is also a producer of the LEGO movie, which is perhaps obvious given that it’s his biopic, and Morgan Neville directs Piece by Piece. On his social media, Pharrell Williams has already teased his fans about the documentary’s release, quoting, ‘Goodbye gravity. Hello possibilities.’ The poster, no less than a shower of colors, hints at the trailer’s claim of the musician being a revolutionary artist. The LEGO Pharrell Williams wears a khaki uniform, similar to the one he wore during his Louis Vuitton debut collection in Paris, with his arms up and wide. Above his head, a tornado of colored LEGO blocks, arranged like a rainbow, funnels in and out of him.

These may refer to the way his mind works, a sleepless engine that always churns out ideas and revs fruitfully. Many of the images peer through the many hats he has worn throughout his career, including the speakers, musical instruments, DJ decks, and vinyls. There’s a hot-red car on the left and a blue plane on the right, but the color that might vacuum viewers into the poster is the background—a flaming yellow—which may be one of Pharrell Williams’ favorite colors. When viewers watch Piece by Piece, under Focus Features, starting October 11th, 2024, they might just see that specific shade recurring in many of his scenes and radiantly interpreted life episodes.

Pharrell Williams’ animated biopic Piece by Piece comes together as a LEGO movie