Back in May of 2010 it was revealed that Transformers director Michael Bay was looking to bring another classic children’s property to the big screen, landing the feature film rights to those heroes in a half-shell, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, via his production company Platinum Dunes. Now comes word from Variety that Bay and fellow producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form may have set their sights on a director for the project in the form of Jonathan Liebesman, whose previous credits include Darkness Falls, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, Battle: Los Angeles and the upcoming fantasy sequel Wrath of the Titans.
Although plot details are being kept tightly under wraps, it is understood that the new film will be a reboot, bearing no relation to the earlier live-action trilogy, nor the 2007 CG-animated feature TMNT. What is known however is that a script has been penned by André Nemec and Josh Appelbaum, co-creators of the television drama series October Road, Life on Mars and Happy Town, and the screenwriting duo behind last year’s action sequel, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.
Created way back in 1984 by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird as a self-published comic book title, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles went on to enjoy a huge level of popularity in the late 80s and early 90s courtesy of Murakami Wolf Swenson’s hit animated series, which ran for ten seasons between 1987-1996 and was renamed Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles here in the UK and across parts of Europe amid concerns about the violent connotations behind the term ‘ninja’.
The Ninja Turtles first graced in live-action form with Steve Barron’s low-budget 1990 feature, and the franchise went on to spawn a further three theatrical releases, along with a live-action television show (Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation) and two subsequent animated series, the most recent of which is set to premiere in the U.S. on Nickelodeon on March 31st.
Originally published February 15, 2012. Updated April 10, 2018.
