The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are headed back to the big screen — with a twist. Unlike last year’s animated, family-friendly Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, the next TMNT film will be live-action — and for the first time, rated R. Producer Walter Hamada is working on a live-action adaptation of the popular TMNT comic The Last Ronin, which takes place in a dystopian future.
Hamada is no stranger to comic book adaptations, having served as the head of Warner Bros’ DC Comics films before departing the company in 2022; he currently serves as the head of Paramount‘s horror films team. The film’s script is set to be written by Tyler Burton Smith, who co-wrote the upcoming actioner Boy Kills World and penned the 2019 Aubrey Plaza-led reboot of Child’s Play. The long-running Paramount-owned TMNT franchise, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, has a number of projects in the works, including a sequel to Mutant Mayhem due in 2026 and a new IDW comic book series penned by star writer Jason Aaron.
What Is ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin’?
A five-issue miniseries published by IDW between 2020 and 2022, The Last Ronin was written by Tom Waltz and TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman, and featured art from Eastman, Esau and Isaac Escorza, and Ben Bishop. It takes place decades in the future, where Oroku Hiroto, the grandson of TMNT archvillain Shredder, rules New York with an army of robotic ninjas. Three of the four Turtles are dead at Oroku’s hands, as is their mentor, Splinter. The sole surviving Turtle (whose identity remains a secret until halfway through the series) is the titular Last Ronin, and after a period in exile, he has returned to the city to avenge his fallen family with the help of April O’Neil and her daughter. The series was an enormous critical and financial success; a prequel series was released last year, and a sequel series is set to be released later this year. A video game adaptation is also in development.
The Last Ronin won’t be the TMNT‘s first foray into live-action. The first TMNT film was released in 1990, and is well-remembered thanks to its impressive stunts and incredible life-sized Turtles from the Jim Henson Workshop. Two live-action sequels followed, to diminishing returns, but most subsequent TMNT projects have been animated; the exception is the largely-forgotten TV series TMNT: The Next Mutation, which featured a crossover with the Power Rangers.
There is currently no release date for The Last Ronin. The next TMNT project, the animated series Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles begins streaming later this month on Paramount+.
via Collider