With its Warner Bros. deal expired since this fall, LEGO is looking to build its empire elsewhere, and Universal Pictures may be where the toy brand winds up. Despite Universal’s already successful animation division, Illumination Entertainment, which has produced The Secret Life of Pets and Despicable Me franchises, the studio is in talks with LEGO for an exclusive partnership, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which also learned that many studios sought a deal with the company. This means we can expect more LEGO movies on the way, though the recent films have underperformed at the box office. After hitting …