It's been nearly two years since we first learned that Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes imprint, usually reserved for bad horror remakes, had snagged the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The plan was to veer away from the great but mostly unseen animated 2007 film, and start over with a live-action version that would follow in the franchise's dark origins. A number of writers have come aboard in that time, starting with Iron Man scribes Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, with the final draft by Andre Nemec and Josh Appleabum, the red hot pair behind Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol. The film never seemed to be progressing, however, but that's apparently changed as a high profile director has entered discussions to step behind the camera.
Jonathan Liebesman, who first rose to prominence directing The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning for Platinum Dunes back in 2006, is in talks to take on the planned reboot. Liebesman has really come into his own lately, with last year's Battle: Los Angeles proving to be one bad ass alien invasion flick, pulling in over $200M. He'll likely top that this year with Wrath of the Titans, a sequel to 2010's Clash of the Titans starring Sam Worthington.
The Ninja Turtles have proven to be extremely resilient since Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird first created them back in 1984 with a series of graphic, violent graphic novels. Since then they've been co-opted into skate boarding, pizza eating, family friendly entertainment that has wavered in quality for nearly two decades. The first live-action film was released back in 1990 at the height of their popularity, earning about $200M worldwide and setting the stage for two more, less successful films. In 2007, a totally CGI sequel titled TMNT was released to mild success, opening at #1 in it's first weekend before finishing it's run with roughly $95M. It was easily the best Turtles film since the original, and despite some issues with the animation also came the closest to getting the tone just right.
I will forever be a huge Ninja Turtles fan, and have been hoping somebody would make a movie that finally shed the silly crap they've been saddled with and bring back some of the edginess which made them cool to begin with. Platinum Dunes seems to be moving in that direction just by pursuing somebody like Liebesman.
That said, the final fight between the Turtles and Shredder in the first movie is still awesome.... [Variety]
