Cowabunga! An animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle reboot movie in development from Seth Rogen

For a rather bizarre concept involving mutated adolescent turtles learning ninjutsu from a giant rat sensei, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have only continued to grow in popularity over the years. I guess thanks to some great characters and equally bizarre antics that have made for some compelling storylines, it’s proof that any weird idea can be turned into a successful one if you execute it well.

After beginning life as an underground comic book and later adapted into several animated TV shows, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have grown to be big movie stars. We originally had three live-action movies in 1990, 1991 and 1993 and made use of incredible costumes and animatronics. In 2014 and 2016 though, we got arguably the Turtles’ biggest onscreen adventures courtesy of a pair of Michael Bay-produced movies, with this reboot mixing CGI with live-action and giving the turtles a new edgy look, which didn’t sit well with many fans. Sandwiched in between all those efforts though was the TMNT full-CGI movie in 2007, which was a huge box office success, tripling its $34 million budget. Some would look at that as evidence that as popular and successful as some of those live-action movies were, maybe the heroes in a half-shell are best suited to the animated format.

Which is why it’s a good thing that we are going to be getting a new animated TMNT movie from Seth Rogen’s Point Grey Pictures, according to a new report from Deadline. There are no details on what the plot for this new full-CG animated feature film reboot will entail but hopefully its nothing like Rogen’s last animated film, Sausage Party, whose adult humour was more distasteful than funny (Editor’s note: LIES). I’m pretty sure they will be keeping to family-friendly territory this time with Nickelodeon still involved in the project. Rogen will be producing alongside frequent partners Evan Goldberg (with whom he co-wrote) Superbad, Pineapple Express, The Green Hornet, and This Is the End), and James Weaver, with Jeff Rowe (writer on the upcoming Connected as well as Gravity Falls) directing.

The movie will be based on a script by Brendan O’Brian with Paramount set to distribute the film. There are no release dates for the project yet. Regardless, it will be good to get some Turtle Power in movie theatres once again, provided they can do the franchise justice.  

Last Updated: July 1, 2020