Five months since pre-production on Ninja Turtles was shut down due to reported script issues, TMNT co-creator and vocal remake proponent Kevin Eastman has provided some clarification on the delayed project: turns out the script is actually really good, and definitely worth repeatedly comparing to The Avengers. So what are you guys on about?
With production on Ninja Turtles shut down indefinitely , Michael Bay's vision of "tough, edgy, funny, and completely lovable [turtle-like aliens]" may never reach screens. But if you're wondering what it would have been like had it reached screens, a recent review of the last draft of the script--the one deemed too terrible for the director of Wrath of the Titans to even bother with--has revealed some insights into what was planned. Unsurprisingly, it sounds quite a bit like what was planned the last time Michael Bay based a movie on an old box of toys in your basement.
If Michael Bay's upcoming Ninja Turtles is the wrong way to reinterpret the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (until absolutely any evidence suggests otherwise, let's assume that to be the case), then this is the right way: a charming animated tribute that stylishly re-imagines the characters for a new cartoon intro. Watch it below, and, as always, for animated Donatello's sake, don't do drugs.
Michael Bay's decision to turn the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles into completely-lovable aliens may be the first step towards building a richer world--a world in which giant turtles are a race, because that should have you choking on richness already--but constructing such a utopia of TMNT origin stories does bring along some new issues to deal with. Most obvious, there's the issue that the characters are specifically described as "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," and none of those words is "alien."
But don't worry, guys, our visionary foreman has a solution: he'll just drop the whole "Teenage Mutant" thing and name his film the more casual, more alien-tolerant "Ninja Turtles." And here we thought Michael Bay had abandoned all pith on Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
Man, this the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are completely-lovable space aliens thing, huh? This is like when Pluto stopped being a planet and when Brontosaurus stopped being a dinosaur, except this is even more inconsequential because it's about made-up turtle ninjas being alien turtle ninjas instead of mutant turtle ninjas. An adulthood in which myself and other fully mature, voting-aged humans go back and forth about the legitimacy of such a change is never the adulthood I imagined for myself. We should be saving for retirement! We should be out there building a richer world! But not the richer world Michael Bay is building by making the ninja turtles be aliens now. That sort of richer world building is too circular to get us anywhere.
Anyway, the good news is it's not just us internet adults still talking about how alien ninja turtles are not my ninja turtles. TMNT co-creator Peter Laird has weighed in on the matter, too, as has future Teenage Alien Ninja Aliens director Jonathan Liebesman. As you could probably guess, they disagree on whether this idea is creatively bankrupt or a very clever idea birthed from Michael Bay and the director of Wrath of the Titans.
Yesterday, Michael Bay's announcement that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would now be "completely lovable" aliens had the internet's TMNT fan base a little concerned that such a change might kind of negate 25-50% of the most basic definition of the characters, even if they would now be more lovable. Bay, not deaf to outside opinions despite what his oeuvre and frequent proximity to concussive blasts might suggest, has today issued a response to condescendingly placate the angry, pro-mutant mob. He's building a richer world!
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series is at last rising to the apex all great franchises inevitably reach: the point where they sort of become Alf with ninjas.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning director Jonathan Liebesman is in talks to once again dutifully reboot a dormant franchise--this time Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the once-beloved '90s property now in the hands of Texas Chainsaw Massacre producers Platinum Dunes and Michael Bay, the man who greedily bought up all the old toys your mom sold in a garage sale and now wants to sell them back to you as image and noise.
Liebesman also previously directed Battle: Los Angeles and the upcoming Clash of the Titans sequel, which will be showing off its new haircut later next month. The Turtles, meanwhile, last appeared on screens as computer-animated shapes in 2007's TMNT, having taken a long break after 1993's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III sent the youth reptiles time-traveling back to feudal Japan--a storyline that remarkably went too absurd for even a series about ooze transforming turtles into sarcastic, pizza-loving teenage warriors who, in some incarnations, fought an alien brain in a giant suit. The reported plan for Liebesman's reboot is to return the franchise to its live-action roots, though prior updates claimed the Turtles themselves would no longer be puppets but rendered in CGI, like the Rise of the Planet of the Apes apes, or those chipmunks we like so much. Hopefully that's remains the case; Andy Serkis is always looking for a reason to slip into some sensor-covered spandex, and more importantly, I really don't want to stop using this graphic.
Not content with John Fusco's draft of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Paramount and Platinum Dunes already hired Art Marcum and Matt Holloway to do a re-write last August. Yet still, the studios remain unconvinced that even this latest draft properly captures Raphael's unique mixture of coolness and rudeness, so they've hired another writing team to give it a go. Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec--the creators of such TV classics as October Road and Life on Mars--apparently impressed the guys at Paramount with their re-write of Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol, and the duo is now being paid to do some writing on this live-action-meets-CGI TMNT we so desperately need. Don't forget a riff on cricket, guys.
We'll get back to normal updates tomorrow, but in the meantime have these things:
- Nickelodeon's new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are probably immune to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
- CBS Films has acquired rights to the Coen Brothers-scripted, Colin Firth/Cameron Diaz-starring remake of Gambit, ensuring the update will aim for the high CBS Films standards set by Extraordinary Measures and The Back-Up Plan.
- Matthew McConaughey is attached to star in Jean Marc Vallee's Dallas Buyer's Club, and will play an AIDS-afflicted electrician who sets up an illegal medication-smuggling operation to extend his life and the lives of others. Does that mean McConaughey will, at some point in the film, not be really muscular when he takes his shirt off?
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid director Thor Freudenthal has signed on to direct Scavengers, a story of three estranged brothers going on an international treasure hunt to collect their recently-deceased father's inheritance. At last, a Darjeeling Limited for the National Treasure attention span.
- We ran out of ideas again, so Macy's and IAM Entertainment taking meetings for a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade movie "and are exploring various concepts, even one where the floats spring to life." Man turning into a float? Man travels to a world of floats? Man falls in love with a float? Up with a float? Contact me, guys.
In early-'90s-remake news today, Deadline has discovered who will be writing both the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Tim Burton's take on The Addams Family.
The current draft of the TMNT script was just poo-pooed by Paramount in a leaked memo, so the studio has brought on Art Marcum and Matt Holloway to rewrite this thing. The pair previously collaborated on the last Punisher film and the just-finished script for a Highlander reboot, but are best known for their Iron Man script, which was famously much better than the Iron Man 2 script.
Tim Burton, meanwhile, is reuniting with screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski for The Addams Family. The two last worked with Burton on Ed Wood, and wrote the Andy Kaufman story Man on the Moon. However, they also wrote Problem Child and Agent Cody Banks, so hard to say what to expect. The Addams Family as either an imaginative biopic or something about a kid doing wild things?
Now on to the important stuff: which lame mainstream rapper will contribute a movie-specific track to each film?
You can stop worrying about future Nickelodeon and Paramount's planned live-action reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They've passed the project on to the trustworthy hands of Michael Bay and his team that made the newest Texas Chainsaw Massacres, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, and all the other nearly-mediocre reboots of '80s horror franchises. WHAT IF THEY DON'T TREAT THE STORY OF TURTLES MUTATED BY OOZE AND TRANSFORMED INTO TEENAGERS AND TRAINED AS NINJA FIGHTERS WITH THE DIGNITY IT DESERVES???
Platinum Dunes Steers 'Turtles' Relaunch [Deadline]
Haven't you wondered how the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles got their start as mutated, nearly adult trained killers? What could have possibly happened? Oh, right, the ooze and training. I guess that was covered in the movie, the cartoon's intro, the arcade game's intro, and the back of all the toy packaging. No matter. Let's go over it one more time. From Variety:
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are making their way back to the bigscreen.The Mirage Group, which owns the property, is moving forward with a live-action film focusing on the origins of the iconic crime fighters. Project, targeted for release in 2011, would mark the fifth bigscreen outing for the sewer-dwelling heroes Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael as well as their master Splinter.
Personally, I would have kept running with the Turtles III/Turtles in Time theme and sent them into the past again. Could Hitler have been a pawn of Krang? That seems feasible. Is that Michelangelo the turtle's head suddenly on the body of Michelangelo's David? What could have happened in the past to spark that sudden, dramatic change that no one seems to notice? The possibilities are endless.
Anyway, here's the teaser trailer:
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I Watch Stuff is a movie and video blog dedicated to bringing you the best and worst that Hollywood and the Internet have to offer and then, more often than not, making fun of it because it sucks.
