The quest to reboot a live-action take on the **Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise has taken a fresh turn with Paramount/Nickelodeon bringing Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes company on board to produce.
It’s something of a surprise, since Dunes has largely specialised in reworking cult horror films such as A Nightmare On Elm Street, Friday The 13th and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre along with spearheading development of original genre material. And while Bay has younger-skewing material bubbling away with other studios (such as the Bay Films/DreamWorks adaptation of I Am Number Four), the Turtles films don’t strike us as much up the company’s alley.
Still, everyone likes a little diversifying now and then, so Andrew Form and Brad Fuller have come aboard to start taking meetings with writers to thrash out what form the new outing will take.
So far, little is known about the project, though if they’re re-launching the series, chances are the producers will focus on getting a new version of the Turtles' origin story, while conceivably taking their look and feel back to the original comics crafted by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. Though if they’re pitching towards a young crowd, those harder-edged tales might still get softened up.
The Turtles first hit the big screen back in 1990, at the height of their pop cultural maelstrom. That original film spawned two sequels, but then the popularity of the martial arts-trained, pizza-loving mutant creatures cooled considerably. They were resurrected for a 2007 CG cartoon by Warners and the now largely defunct Imagi Studios, but the current rights holders are planning to get back to live action territory, possibly with CG versions of Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michaelangelo interacting with real humans.
Talking of: hey, Mike… Megan Fox is looking for work. Maybe she could play intrepid reporter/Turtle pal April O’Neil? Michael… Put the giant money clip down. Michael… no… NO! OW! MY SPLEEN!