Before the release of The LEGO Movie, what were the initial thoughts at its announcement?

When I saw the first trailer for The LEGO Movie was uploaded, I was 12 years old and very excited to watch it. I mean, yeah, I was very young back then and I think I would have enjoyed it even if it hadn't turned out to be the masterpiece that it ended up being. Plus, it was released just 2 days after my 13th birthday, so it felt like a gift. Anyway, I was excited to see it ever since the first trailer for it dropped.

But I recently asked myself: How did people react back when the movie was first announced? I'm not saying when the first trailer dropped, but when news outlets reported that a movie about LEGO is in production.

My kid me would have thought it was excitement, but... thinking like an adult (or someone who is about to turn 24), I think the initial reaction might have been that the movie smelled like a cash grab. Or not like a cash grab, but more like something that, conceptually, doesn't sound like something that would genuinely work, and I can see people back then thinking the movie would purely exist to sell toys. Not to mention that LEGO is considered to be a tool to create your own story and the idea of a definitive story about LEGO sounds absurd on paper. LEGO isn't like Transformers, He-Man, or Thunder Cats where there is a story, or at least some sort of mythos bound to them to create a story out of it. It's mostly like a paper and a pen. That's kinda the reason why the movie based on Minecraft that will launch I think this year is called "A Minecraft Movie" not "THE Minecraft Movie"

Of course, The LEGO Movie turned out not just good, but also one of the best animation movies of the first half of 2010s. But I'm still wondering what people thought about it before seeing any footage from the film.