‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem’: Shredder Will Appear in Future Movies!!

One of the first classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters you think of when you think of the beloved franchise may be Shredder – the Turtles’ blade-clad arch nemesis, and nightmare fuel to millions of children. Though despite the character enduring as the ragtag team of sewer dwellers’ main antagonist, fans may be surprised to learn he does not appear in the upcoming film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. Audiences shouldn’t lose hope for an appearance from the iconic character however, as the film’s co-director Jeff Rowe has promised that Shredder will be in future movies, should a sequel be greenlit.

Speaking with SFX magazine, Rowe has said he is “100%” committed to developing the franchise further, teasing an appearance from Shredder in movies to come. “We’ll Dark Knight it,” he jokes, in reference to Joker – undeniably the most iconic member of Batman’s rogues gallery – making his debut in the second film of Christopher Nolan‘s comic book movie trilogy. Rowe would like to see the Turtles develop more before facing their greatest threat, believing this would make Shredder all the more formidable. He explained,”When you’ve grown and you’ve become confident as a teenager, to then go up against a foe that is three times scarier than anything you’ve ever seen before, that’s interesting and dramatic.”

The film’s protagonists having room for growth is one of the key elements of Rowe‘s adaptation that sets Mutant Mayhem apart from previous iterations, with a conscious effort made to portray the teenage Turtles as exactly that – teenagers. Production went so far as to cast actual teenagers in the roles, as to accurately portray the characters at a formative time of their lives. Rowe explained “we wanted a teenager to watch the movie and feel seen by it and understood.” He continued, “that was our cornerstone for everything, like making the Turtles not hulking, ripped versions of themselves, but lanky and awkward. That carried through into casting actual teenagers. It’s insane that it had never been done before.” In the upcoming project, the titular Turtles are played by Nicolas Cantu, Micah Abbey, Brady Noon, and Shamon Brown Jr.

A New Chapter for the Turtles

Rowe‘s noting of “hulking, ripped” depictions of the Turtles alludes to the last theatrical outing of the characters, in 2016’s Dave Green-directed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. That film, and its 2014 predecessor, depicted their leads as uncanny – and slightly grotesque – creatures that looked more like aliens than teenagers of any Earthbound species. The upcoming film seeks to rectify that not only with its teenage casting, but also with a much more youthful and playful visual style. Joining Cantu, Abbey, Noon and Brown Jr. in the cast is Seth Rogen (who wrote the screenplay), Ayo Edebiri, John Cena, Natasia Demetriou, Maya Rudolph, Ice Cube, Post Malone, and Hannibal Buress.