Cowabaunga, dudes, it looks like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have a brand-new sensei.
Neal H. Moritz, the veteran producer behind The Fast and the Furious franchise, is in negotiations to take on the job of re-starting TMNT as a live-action film franchise for Paramount Pictures. Toby Ascher, who works with Moritz at their Original Films banner, will also act as a producer.
The move occurs as the Skydance-owned studio is taking a magnifying glass to its slate and existing IP. As opposed to some other titles, namely Transformers or G.I. Joe, Paramount fully owns the TMNT brand, having picked it up from co-creator Peter Laird in 2009, and it is seeking to fully unlock its potential.
There hasn’t been a live-action (or live-action/CG animation hybrid) feature since the mid-2010s, when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows bombed at the box office, stopping the film franchise in its tracks. The studio pivoted to animation and instead made Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, released in 2023 to great critical acclaim.
New Paramount has already been shaking up TMNT and its TV media division, and recently put Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a spinoff of Mutant Mayhem, down the sewer, shutting down the series in the middle of production earlier this fall. “This is not the vision the owners want,” was the reason given to those working on the show. Showrunner Christopher Yost confirmed the cancellation on Threads, saying “the upcoming episodes of Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will sadly be the last. Luckily, they’re our best episodes yet.”
At the same time, The Last Ronin, another TMNT live-action/CG animation hybrid project that was in development, has been put back in the pizza box, according to sources. That project was being developed as an R-rated feature, and had Nobody filmmaker Ilya Naishuller in talks to direct, but the new regime wasn’t keen on having the first non-animated movie in 10 years be a bloody, adult-skewing story. One insider says the studio wants to leave the door open to possibly revisit it down the road.
The sequel to Mutant Mayhem, being produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg and directed by Jeff Rowe, is still set for a Sept. 17, 2027 release.
Multiple sources say Paramount wants to “Sonic-fy” the TMNT franchise. Sonic the Hedgehog is a three-movie (and counting) hit franchise for Paramount that is based on the popular Sega video game. The movies are live-action/hybrids and play very well to the all-ages, four-quadrant crowd and have become a $1 billion-plus franchise for the studio. And they happen to be produced by Moritz.
“If you want Sonic, you go to the guy who did Sonic,” said one insider.
