Seth Rogen Producing New ‘Ninja Turtles’ Movie
As a wise mutated turtle once said: Cowabunga.
As announced via a tweet, Seth Rogen is officially producing a new version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the impossibly long-running comic and animated series about four turtles transformed from the norm by the nuclear goop. This version will reportedly be a computer animated film for theaters, and it’s expected to arrive on August 11, 2023.
At least that’s what Rogen’s tweets claim, which also included a page of “notes” designed to look like a kid’s daydreaming doodles about his beloved Ninja Turtles:
According to Variety, Jeff Rowe, the co-director of The Mitchells vs. the Machines is the new Ninja Turtles’ director. The script is by Brendan O’Brien.
The Turtles, created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird in the pages of their own self-published comics in 1984, have proven to be reliable hits with movie audiences. Their first film, the live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from 1990, featured performers inside cutting-edge creature suits designed by Jim Henson’s company. It wound up becoming a surprise blockbuster, grossing more than $200 million worldwide against a tiny budget.
Two more live-action sequels followed, and then in 2007 they appeared in their first big-screen animated movie, TMNT. That film made about $100 million in theaters, and then it was followed about seven years later by a new live-action Ninja Turtles franchise (with motion-captured Turtles). The first one of those, produced by Michael Bay, made almost half a billion dollars worldwide, and led to a sequel, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. That one was the rare teenage ninja mutant flop.
Rogen would seem to be a good fit for the Turtles and their band of goofy humor. He tends to go for a slightly older audience — but definitely not a more mature one. I could even see him voicing Michelangelo. (But only Michelangelo. Leonardo is far too serious to be voiced by the likes of Seth Rogen.)