Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
That’s right, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are coming back. The plan is for Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Donatello and Splinter to return in a live-action feature in 2011. It’s set to be a reboot, since that’s all the rage nowadays, so we’ll see their origin again. It’ll also use the first batch of the original 1984 comics series as its source material. The press release also mentions April, Casey Jones and Shredder, so I’d expect those guys to join the fun too.
Co-creator Peter Laird, who bought out Kevin Eastman’s share of the property a while back, is teaming up with Gary Richardson, Frederick Fierst, Eric Crown and Napoleon Smith III to executive produce. Scott Mednick and Galen Walker are producing. Mednick is an executive producer on Where the Wild Things Are and perhaps not coincidentally, Laird says they’re considering using “face replacement technology” to allow the characters to be highly expressive. So I’d expect something like Where the Wild Things Are, with full scale puppets/costumes providing most motion and on-set work while CGI will come into play later to redo the faces. This all sounds like it’s heading in the right direction.
I’ll also chime in and say that I’d absolutely love trade paperback reprints of the original black and white ’80s run of the comics. I would also accept them sooner rather than later… For that matter, I’d jump all over the Archie series again. One of my great regrets is getting rid of that entire set… Why do kids never understand what they’ll appreciate having around once they become adults?
Ooh, and while you’re at it, come to an arrangement with Konami to let all the awesome sidescrolling brawlers get released on the Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console. I’d buy those in a heartbeat.
Happy 25 years to the Turtles!
