Michael Bay Comments on Leaked NINJA TURTLES Script
(Image by Johnny J. Segura III)
This last week we've had a few discussions about a leaked script for the Michael Bay-produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot. The script and the ideas in it were aboslutely horrific. You can see a full rundown of that script here if you want, so you can see for yourself just how bad it was. Thankfully that script has been scrapped.
Bay has now commented on the leaked script saying...
The leaked script that different sites continue to comment on was written well before I, or anyone at Platinum Dunes, was involved with the project. That script saw the shredder a long time ago. This is tired, old news -- wait for the movie!
The only issue with that statement is that the script that leaked had a date of 1/30/12 on it, which would be almost 2 years after Bay and Platinum Dune became involved with the project. Does he think we're stupid or something?
TMNT co-creator Peter Laird made another statement about the script as well saying,
I think the script that I read is so fundamentally flawed, and — more to the point — so NOT a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, that trying to make piecemeal changes to it in an effort to make it into something halfway decent is probably a fool’s errand.
In my opinion, the thing should just be tossed out, deliberately forgotten, and the process of generating a new script really a new outline, then treatment, then script — should be started again. I have no insider knowledge of what’s going on with the movie, but from the bits and pieces that have slipped out, it seems like that may be exactly what is happening.
While we’re on the subject of this script… I have to say that while reading it, and especially reading the last twenty pages or so, I couldn’t help but think of the brouhaha which erupted a few months back when Michael Bay was heard to say that in the upcoming movie, the Turtles would be revealed to be “from an alien race”, and following that, all the mental gymnastics indulged in by people who wanted to parse his words and make it seem like “No, he didn’t REALLY say they were going to be ALIENS!”… and then this script makes it way out onto the Internet, and if it is legitimate, it’s painfully clear that YES, the Turtles WERE, in fact, going to be ALIENS.
Hopefully they've started developing the project from scratch, and all of these changes that were made won't end up in whatever film they end up making. After all of the hate they've gotten on the film concepts in this script they'd be stupid to move forward with them.
What do you think about Bay's comments?