Credit: Paramount PicturesThe latest Ninja Turtles director just hinted at an exciting sequel to Mutant Mayhem.
Anticipation for the upcoming CG-animated reboot, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023), couldn’t be higher. The film received a standing ovation at the Annecy Film Festival last month, followed by more positive reactions at an early private screening held by Paramount Pictures. With the film just weeks away, fans are excited to see their half-shell heroes like never before.
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Taking inspiration from Sony’s Spider-Verse movies, the film showcases a striking animation style. While the Ninja Turtles are no strangers to the world of animation, with three cartoons, a CG-animated show, a CG movie, and a bunch of video games under their belts, Mutant Mayhem has already set itself apart.
The two trailers for the film have also left fans excited, despite a select few threatening to boycott the film for portraying April O’Neil as African-American. But Mutant Mayhem has faced other criticisms in recent months (of the healthier variety) for not including the Ninja Turtles’ arch nemesis, The Shredder, who has appeared in four of the theatrical films so far, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Secret of the Ooze (1991), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016), as well as several TV iterations and beyond.
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Producer Seth Rogen and director Jeff Rowe decided to take a slightly different direction with their film. Not only are the Ninja Turtles portrayed as young teenagers, which means they likely won’t meet The Shredder for some time yet, the focus, just as the title suggests, is mainly placed on the mutant villains from the wider TMNT franchise.
In an attempt to prove themselves to the citizens of New York City and become accepted as people and not “freaks,” the Ninja Turtles will face off against Superfly (Ice Cube), Genghis Frog (Hannibal Buress), Leatherhead (Rose Byrne), Post Malone (Ray Fillet), Mondo Gecko (Paul Rudd), Wingnut (Natasia Demetriou), Seth Rogen (Bebop), and Rocksteady (John Cena).
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Recently, it was reported that a CG-animated TMNT television series in development for Paramount+ would follow Mutant Mayhem, paving the way for a “shared universe”. While this is currently just a rumor, it seems to align with Paramount Pictures’ confirmed plans for several TMNT villain-focused films heading for their streaming service.
So, The Shredder will probably show up somewhere, right? We finally have an answer, because Mutant Mayhem director Jeff Rowe shared some interesting information during a recent interview with SFX magazine. When discussing whether or not the iconic samurai would show up in a sequel, he jokingly said, “We’ll Dark Knight it [the sequel],” referring, of course, to the film, The Dark Knight (2008), the second film in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, which introduces the Caped Crusader’s arch nemesis, Joker (Heath Ledger).
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Rowe said he is “100% committed” to developing the franchise further, before talking about the “teenage aspect” of the Ninja Turtles in the film, saying, “We wanted a teenager to watch the movie and feel seen by it and understood. When you’ve grown and you’ve become confident as a teenager, to then go up against a foe that is three times scarier than anything you’ve ever seen before, that’s interesting and dramatic.”
“That was our cornerstone for everything,” he went on, “like making the Turtles not hulking, ripped versions of themselves, but lanky and awkward. That carried through into casting actual teenagers. It’s insane that it had never been done before.”
His “hulking, ripped versions” comment is undoubtedly a reference, perhaps even a dig, at the two Michael Bay-produced films from 2014 and 2016, which garnered a lot of controversy due to the Ninja Turtles’ large, hulking designs, as they were quite the departure from any other version that had come before them.
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The 2014 film was also criticized for rehashing the same old story: the Ninja Turtles going up against The Shredder, a villain who has been reused countless times over the decades yet was killed off at the end of the original Mirage Studios comic book in the ’80s.
Now, it seems Mutant Mayhem can’t even escape the wrath of The Shredder. As Rowe suggests, he may very well show up in the sequel.
Check out the trailer for Mutant Mayhem below:
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As per Wikipedia, here’s the official synopsis for Mutant Mayhem:
After years of being sheltered from the human world, the Turtles set out to win the hearts of New Yorkers and be accepted as normal teenagers through heroic acts. Their new friend April O’Neil helps them take on a notorious crime syndicate, but they soon get in over their heads when an army of mutants is unleashed upon them.
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Mutant Mayhem stars Nicolas Cantu (Leonardo), Micah Abbey (Donatello), Shamon Brown Jr. (Michelangelo), Brady Noon (Raphael), Jackie Chan (Splinter), Ayo Edebiri (April O’Neil), Seth Rogen (Bebop), John Cena (Rocksteady), Hannibal Buress (Genghis Frog), Rose Byrne (Leatherhead), Ice Cube (Superfly), Post Malone (Ray Fillet), Paul Rudd (Mondo Gecko), Maya Rudolph (Cynthia Utrom), Natasia Demetriou (Wingnut), and Giancarlo Esposito (Baxter Stockman).
Mutant Mayhem (2023) will be released in theaters on August 2, 2023.
Do you think Shredder has been overused in the Ninja Turtles movies, or would you like to see him show up in Mutant Mayhem 2? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!