TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM Compared to STAND BY ME
I’m actually pretty excited about the Seth Rogen-produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem animated movie. It looks like it’ll tell a fun story, and I dig the animation style! I also like how they got actual teenagers to play the Ninja Turtles because they actually come across as actual teens.
During a recent interview with Empire, director Jeff Rowe talked about the movie and revealed the vibe they were going for was Stand By Me and Lady Bird. He said: “We wanted it to be like Stand By Me and Lady Bird. But, you know, with Ninja Turtles.” I love this because Stand By Me is one of my all-time favorite movies.
The director, who previously worked on The Mitchells Vs The Machines, went on to say he wanted this to capture the energy of the teenage actors so they could make “the ultimate teenage coming-of-age film.” He went on to talk about the voice actors saying: “They’ve got a lot of that inauthentic confidence that teenagers have: when you’re a teen, you don’t know any better, so you operate with this hyped-up sense of, ‘We can do anything!’”
The Ninja Turtles are voiced by Micah Abbey as Donatello, Shamon Brown Jr. as Michelangelo, Nicolas Cantu as Leonardo, and Brady Noon as Raphael. These four actors were put in a recording room together where they riffed off each other’s energy, and you can feel it when you watch the trailer. These kids were having a blast! I recently got to watch several minutes of footage from the movie, and I think Ninja Turtles fans are going to love this!
In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, after years of being sheltered from the human world, the Turtle brothers set out to win the hearts of New Yorkers and be accepted as normal teenagers through heroic acts. Their new friend April O’Neil helps them take on a mysterious crime syndicate, but they soon get in over their heads when an army of mutants is unleashed upon them.
The rest of the voice cast includes Jackie Chan as Splinter, John Cena as Rocksteady, Seth Rogen as Bebop, Ice Cube as Superfly, Rose Byrne as Leatherhead, Natasia Demetriou as Wingnut, Ayo Edebiri as April O’Neil, Giancarlo Esposito as Baxter Stockman, Post Malone as Ray Fillet, Paul Rudd as Mondo Gecko, and Maya Rudolph as Cynthia Utrom.
The film is set to hit theaters on August 4, 2023.