Movie producer who was baffled by The Lego Movie writers and directors

In 2013, a movie producer named Tripp Vinson was thumbing through Variety when he stumbled upon a confounding item: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, a pair of writers and directors, were working on something called The Lego Movie.

Vinson was baffled. “I had no idea where they were going to go with Legos,” he says. “There’s no character; no narrative; no theme. Nothing.”

A sharply handsome man in his mid-40s, Vinson has worked in Hollywood for 14 years, racking up 19 producing credits.