Last month, Paramount announced that Battle: Los Angeles and Wrath of the Titans director Jonathan Liebesman would be directing the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film, set for a release in 2014. The film is being shepherded by Platinum Dunes, Michael Bay’s production company that was behind remakes of horror films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, and more. On Monday, Bay made a strange statement about the angle the new film will take: the turtles will be from an alien race this time around. Naturally, fans are in an uproar, and Bay has issued a response telling them to “chill.”
Here was Bay’s original statement, via THR:
When you see this movie, kids are going to believe, one day, that these turtles actually do exist when [we] are done with this movie. These turtles are from an alien race and they are going to be tough, edgy, funny and completely lovable.
As anyone who grew up on the television show or previous films knows, the turtles’ original backstory involves being mutated by ooze, causing them to grow to human size. Having them be from an alien race seems to directly oppose the “mutant” part of their moniker, and having them be “completely lovable” doesn’t do much to support the theory that this will be a darker version of the Turtles than we’ve seen before on screen.
Bay heard the uproar, and responded on his website:
Fans need to take a breath, and chill. They have not read the script. Our team is working closely with one of the original creators of Ninja Turtles to help expand and give a more complex back story. Relax, we are including everything that made you become fans in the first place. We are just building a richer world.
Apologies if I’m still a bit skeptical, Mr. Bay. I’ll wait until I see a teaser or some real footage for the project before I fully pass judgment, but as of now my anticipation for this movie is pretty deflated. But we’ve still got a long way to go before we see this version of the pizza-loving heroes, because it doesn’t hit theaters until Christmas Day, 2013.
