of North American operations, said in 2009 that licenses played a more prominent role in the American market than overseas. About 60 percent of Lego's American sales were estimated to be linked to licenses, twice that of 2004. Laursen stated in 2009 that Lego was "definitely more commercially oriented". In 2009, both Lego Games (board games) and Lego Power Miners were introduced, along with the concept for Lego Ninjago. Despite the Great Recession, profits for 2009 were £99.5 million, with Mads Nipper, Lego executive vice-president of marketing, stating to be "delivering twice the return on sales of any competitor." In 2011, Lego launched a new theme called Lego Ninjago, which became a popular theme worldwide, and resumed a long-term contract with Royal Dutch Shell, after using its logo on products from the 1960s through to the 1990s. Greenpeace criticized this co-branding in 2014. After the Greenpeace campaign, Lego decided not to renew the contract, with the Shell logo only appearing in co-licensed sets with Ferrari or BMW. In 2012, an animated short film titled The Lego Story made by Danish studio Lani Pixels for the 80th anniversary of Lego, depicted the struggles of Ole Kirk Christiansen and his son Godtfred Kirk Christiansen from 1932 to 1968, as they worked to make the company successful. In 2014, Warner Bros and The Lego Group released The Lego Movie, a computer-animated adventure comedy film telling the story of an ordinary Lego Minifigure construction worker named Emmet Brickowski prophesied to save the world. It received one of the highest recorded openings for an original animated movie, and the Los Angeles Times noted "nearly unanimous positive reviews" for the film. In 2015, the Lego firm sparked controversy when it refused a bulk order to Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who is openly critical of the Chinese Communist government. Ai had previously used Lego bricks to build portraits of world political activists. Lego said it would not sell directly to users with "political intentions." An opinion piece in the Communist Party mouthpiece Global Times praised Lego for its "good business sense" while the decision drew condemnation online. Lego fans offered to donate Lego bricks to Ai Weiwei instead. In 2017, Warner Bros, DC Entertainment, and The Lego Group released The Lego Batman Movie as a spinoff based on one of the lead characters of Lego's first animated movie. Lego has since released another animated film based on