Kevin Eastman Compares Bay’s Ninja Turtles to The Avengers

Well, as new information continues to be revealed about the new Ninja Turtles movie coming out in 2014, it should become increasingly apparent that it really is going to happen. Fans have been hoping that the project would simply stall out and die, but with several big name actors attached to the project (Including George Takei and Sean Astin), it’s time to start hoping for the best. Many are probably still going to refuse to see the film, but Co-Creator of the TMNT Kevin Eastman still has high hopes for the film. In a recent interview with NBC Chicago, Eastman said the following about the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie:

“All the intentions are in the right place. I couldn’t be happier to be a part of it. I think it’s going to be a fantastic film. Jonathan Liebesman is going to make a great film. From what I’ve seen of the script, it’s fantastic. Michael Bay has made some great and intense movies. We’re talking about being inspired by movies like Marvel’s The Avengers for scope and roots origin and The Raid: Redemption for fight scenes and Rise of the Planet of the Apes as far as computer-quality style.

I want to tell the fans first and foremost not to worry, this will be a great TMNT film. Much like many thirty year old concepts, the TMNT have been re-invented a number of times, some were stronger than others, but if you look at what Viacom/Nickelodeon has done/allowed to happen with the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated TV series, and the new IDW comic series, each has a slightly new and refreshed take on the “core concept.” The new film will be the same, a film “well placed” in the Ninja Turtles lore that the fans will enjoy. If we learned nothing else from one of my favorite “Comic Book Based Films, Marvel’s The Avengers, there’s a lot to be said about never forgetting that core concept and core fan-base.

Three years ago, I started working on the John Fusco version, which was this awesome, awesome, awesome Batman Begins kind of take on the first movie. It was really interesting, but it was maybe a little too edgy for what Paramount wanted. It went through a couple of different versions before Michael Bay took it over and brought in Jonathan Liebesman to direct.”

There’s a lot to take in here, but I think it’s important to deconstruct some of what he’s saying here. In his comparisons to other films, he says that the scope and roots origin of the film will be much like that of Joss Whedon’s hit blockbuster The Avengers. The only problem with that concept is that movie was founded in roots and scope that were largely defined by several movies that came before it and linked directly to it. With Ninja Turtles, there is no such origin of roots to pull from, with the three classic films done in the early 90’s and the 2007 CG Animated film TMNT standing on their own. I’m not sure exactly what he meant by that comment, but it definitely doesn’t seem to hold up to scrutiny.

The concept he talks about having worked on with John Fusco actually sounds pretty cool, so why didn’t they stick with that? Why did they finally decide to settle on Bay and Liebesman? Well, whatever the reason, some of the proposed changes still have fans outraged. Eastman has officially jumped on the Michael Bay bandwagon here, essentially telling us all to calm down, that there’s nothing to worry about. Is he right? Well, the short description recently posted on the IMDB profile for the film may give us hope that the origin hasn’t changed as much as we had originally feared, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re in the clear. However, if Kevin Eastman says that it’s actually going to be really good, maybe we should listen. Who knows? This new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie could turn out to be pretty great after all.

TMNT Avengers Photo credit to: Justin Vactor