Credit: Paramount PicturesJust as we all expected, last night’s Nickelodeon’s 2023 Kids’ Choice Awards featured the very first teaser for the animated reboot Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023), which is being produced by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and James Weaver.
After all of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles social media accounts changed their profile pictures to reflect the film’s official logo (as shown below), TMNT fans waited with baited breath for the Ninja Turtles reboot teaser, which didn’t drop until the end of the show!
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While not a trailer per se, the first-look footage is a short montage that shows each of the four Ninja Turtles flexing their signature weapons, in an animation style whose frame-rate appears very similar to that of animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018).
However, producer Seth Rogen took to the stage to reveal that the first official trailer for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem will premiere tomorrow, on Monday August 5. Rogen also announced the star-studded line up of voice actors for the film.
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Those cast members and their respective characters are outlined below, which includes A-list actors from Marvel, Star Wars, Fast and Furious, and more, such as Paul Rudd, John Cena, Jackie Chan, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne, Giancarlo Esposito, Ice Cube, and even Seth Rogen himself!
Here they are:
- Nicolas Cantu as Leonardo
- Micah Abbey as Donatello
- Shamon Brown Jr. as Michelangelo
- Brady Noon as Raphael
- Jackie Chan as Splinter
- Ayo Edebiri as April O’Neil
- Seth Rogen as Bebop
- John Cena as Rocksteady
- Hannibal Buress as Genghis Frog
- Rose Byrne as Leatherhead
- Ice Cube as Superfly
- Post Malone as Ray Fillet
- Paul Rudd as Mondo Gecko
- Maya Rudolph as Cynthia Utrom
- Natasia Demetriou as Wingnut
- Giancarlo Esposito as Baxter Stockman
With the exception of well-known characters like April O’Neil, Splinter, Bebop, Rocksteady, Baxter Stockman, and, of course, the four Ninja Turtles themselves, only diehard fans will recognize the other characters, all of whom are mutants from the wider TMNT universe.
And, as you can see, and just as Inside the Magic previously predicted, Seth Rogen will be voicing mutant warthog Bebop (which will be the second warthog he’s voiced, following Pumbaa in Disney’s 2019 live-action remake of The Lion King).
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It would also appear that a couple of characters from the franchise have been gender-swapped, with Rose Byrne voicing Leatherhead, who is usually a male character, and Maya Rudolph voicing Cynthia Utrom, who sounds like a female version of the villain Krang.
Oddly enough, we previously reported that the main four Ninja Turtles — Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo — had been “replaced” in the long-running IDW Publishing comics by four new Turtles, two of whom are female.
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Rogen also welcome to the stage the four actors who will be playing the Ninja Turtles themselves, who, for the first time in the franchise’s history, are actually teenagers, something Rogen previously stated will be a huge focus in the upcoming film.
Mutant Mayhem will be the seventh theatrical Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film, following Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993), TMNT (2007), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016).
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023) will be released in theaters on August 4, 2023. There’s also another live-action Ninja Turtles reboot in the works from producer Michael Bay, however, there’s currently no release date for that film.
Meanwhile, the IDW Publishing comic book series “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin — The Lost Years” Issue #1 and Issue #2 are on sale now. Kevin Eastman recently confirmed that the series will run five issues with a one-shot called “Lost Day”, which will lead into “The Last Ronin 2”.
Are you excited for Mutant Mayhem? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!