Although the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have kept a steady presence on television over the years thanks to various animated shows, it’s been a minute since we last saw the heroes in a half shell in a cinematic setting. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows came out in 2016, and with plans to deliver a threequel for that particular film series being scrapped, it was announced last year that Seth Rogen is developing an animated reboot. But it turns out that’s not the only Ninja Turtles movie on the way, as Saturday Night Live’s Colin Jost is putting together a separate project.
Jost, who is SNL’s head writer and co-anchor’s the NBC show’s Weekend Update segment with Michael Che, is teaming with his brother, Casey Jost, to write a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie for Paramount Pictures, with Deadline’s Justin Kroll clarifying that this will be a separate live-action feature. This news comes soon after Colin Jost scored an Emmy nomination for his writing work on SNL, and as well as having starred earlier this year in Tom & Jerry and Coming 2 America. Jost is also writing Worst Man for Universal Pictures.
No plot details have been revealed for Colin and Casey Jost’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie have been revealed, so it’s hard to say what sort of threat these versions of Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphael will be dealing with when they’re not enjoying pizza or training under their rat master Splinter. This will be the sixth live-action Ninja Turtles movie to be released since the film series launched in 1990, and tenth altogether counting 2007’s TMNT, 2019’s direct-to-video Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Seth Rogen’s upcoming reboot and the upcoming film tying to the Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series, which arrives on Netflix later this year.
The safe bet is that this new live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie will be yet another reboot that puts a fresh spin on the property, whether it’s telling another version of the eponymous protagonists’ origin story or following along with them as more experienced heroes. That being said, last year, Bobby Herbeck, who co-wrote 1990’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, said he’d been having conversations with interested parties about taking a Halloween-style approach with another Ninja Turtles movie. In other words, just like how 2018’s Halloween only sharing continuity with the same-named 1978 original directed by John Carpenter, this Ninja Turtles “reboot” would only build off what happened in the 1990 movie, ignoring the events of 1991’s Secret of the Ooze and its 1993 time-traveling follow-up.
As for Seth Rogen’s animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie (which he’s producing with Evan Goldberg), Rogen said that he wanted to emphasize the “teenage” element of the property, which was certainly evident in the tease he shared on social media in June. Neighbors: Sorority Rising’s Brendan O’Brien is writing the script and Gravity Falls’ Jeff Rowe will direct. If I had to guess, the animated Ninja Turtles movie will be a PG-rated, family-friendly offering, while Colin and Casey Jost’s movie will rest comfortably in PG-13 territory.
Needless to say we’ll keep you apprised on updates concerning both of these upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies as they trickle in. In the meantime, catch up to speed on what movies are coming in the neat future with our 2021 release schedule and 2022 release schedule.
