Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin will be a Live-Action, R-Rated Movie

Movies

Paramount is going for a slightly more mature vibe in their next Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. After the strictly-for-kids (I assume; I skipped this one) Mutant Mayhem, The Hollywood Reporter exclusively reveals that the studio is adapting Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin as an R-rated, live-action film. If you’ve never heard of it, The Last Ronin is a comic book story from IDW written by Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman from a story he and Peter Laird came up with in which the last surviving Turtle seeks revenge for the murders of his brothers in a dystopian future. Walter Hamada, former President for DC films at Warner Bros., now works for Paramount and is producing the film through his own production label, 18hz Productions. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin will be written by Tyler Burton Smith, who wrote the upcoming action movie Boy Kills World, as well as the Child’s Play remake and two video games, Sleeping Dogs and Alan Wake II. There’s no word on a director, actors, or a release date yet.

How refreshing is it that they don’t have a release date ready as soon as the film is announced? It’s almost like they want to make sure it’s a good movie that’s ready to be seen first. I’m not sold on Tyler Burton Smith as the writer yet, though; while I haven’t seen Boy Kills World, the trailer makes it look like it has a lot of broad humor, which doesn’t sound like it will fit with the darker story of The Last Ronin. That doesn’t mean he can’t write a more serious film (or even that Boy Kills World isn’t more serious than it looks), but based on what little I know of him, he wouldn’t be my first choice. But the idea that Paramount would go with a story like this and have the guts to make it an R-rated movie is impressive. Now that traditional comic book cinema is on the wane, why not take some risks? It worked for Joker. I’m interested in what a modern live-action Turtles movie will look like; I imagine it’ll be CGI instead of the rubber suits and animatronic masks from the 90s. If the effects are good enough, it could be great, but considering what a lot of CGI looks like now, we may end up missing the 90s costuming (which looked terrific, to be fair, especially in the first one). As for the comic, I haven’t read it; I wanted to wait for a softcover release, which led to me finding out who the surviving Turtle is because the internet is the internet. But it’s moved up the list now.