With the latest film based on the characters heading our way later this year, it seems only appropriate that Paramount should also pick up and distribute a labour of love by three part-time filmmakers who have spent years tracking down contributors for a documentary called Turtle Power about Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphael, better known as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Check out the first trailer for the film.
It feels like a smart move for the company, which can use the documentary to re-introduce the characters (though they’ve stayed popular through recent animated TV efforts) to a wider audience, while also catering to those who grew up with the Turtles in their lives. And, unlike some studio-spawned PR effort, this will have more candid interviews with original Turtle powerhouses Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, Brian Henson and Steve Barron, who worked on the original live-action film back in 1990.
Isaac Elliott-Fisher, Mark Hussey and Randall Lobb are the people to credit for wrangling various interviewees together, working since 2008 between other jobs to research, write and shoot the thing.
Turtle Power: The Definitive History Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arrives on DVD and Digital HD August 12 in the States, four days after the new film launches there on August 8. There’s no word on a UK release yet, but with Jonathan Liebesman’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pic due here on October 17, we’d hope for a similar release pattern.