TMNT Creators Torn On Ninja Turtles Movie

Last week, Peter Laird had some pretty negative things to say about the choice to cast Megan Fox in the new movie. To be fair, Laird hasn’t exactly been a fan of anything that they’ve been doing with the film, although some of his words were misinterpreted as being positive about a year ago. Let’s just say that he was being fairly sarcastic about the horrible possibilities of the new flick back then and he definitely hasn’t warmed up to it since. In a recent blog entry, the co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had the following to say about the new casting choice:

“My only exposure to Megan Fox as an actress is through her role in two TRANSFORMERS movies and the wretched (but happily forgettable) JENNIFER’S BODY. It may not be fair to judge her range of acting skills just from those three movies, but I think it is safe to say that there are probably hundreds of better choices for the role of April O’Neil. Of course, her name has promotional value, and maybe that’s what they want. Who knows? I can’t get myself too worked up about it.”

Coming out and saying that there are “probably hundreds of better choices for the role of April O’Neil” is a pretty harsh way of saying that he didn’t much care for the choice. Cut to a week later and, as you might have expected, Kevin Eastman has been asked to share his thoughts on the progress of the film. If we can say that Laird hasn’t exactly been a fan, I think it’s safe to say that Eastman has been. Over the past year, he’s been a vocal supporter of Michael Bay’s new project and has had nothing negative to say about it. Once again, his words on this matter were very supportive and appreciative, suggesting that fans would not be let down. Unfortunately, it’s also pretty clear that he was feeding the interviewer an answer that he had already given several times before, so there might not be much to see here that hasn’t already been seen. That being said, it’s important to note that while one creator is not so happy with this project, the other seems to be quite satisfied, as he explains in his answer given to CBR:

“From everything that I’ve seen in the (Ninja Turtles) script and the development and everything they’ve asked my input on specifically, it’s gonna be an awesome, familiar, solid “Turtles” movie. It’ll have everything that fans are gonna want and then some.

Much like you look at what they’re doing at Nickelodeon with the new animated series, it’s all based solidly on the “Turtles” foundation, but they’ve hit the reset button. They’ve taken it back to the first episode, with the Turtles first time above ground after many years of training with Master Splinter. They’re making a “Turtles” origin that is firmly rooted in “Turtles” history, but a slight tweak here and a slight tweak there. It’s been enjoyable and the IDW series is much the same, in that it’s firmly rooted in “Turtles” history, but multiple “Turtles” universes.”

While this is a somewhat comforting response that should give fans hope, it should also be taken with a grain of salt. After all, the last time Eastman was said to have any involvement in the script and development of the film was almost a year ago. A lot of things can change in a year, and we just don’t know if he has had any further involvement since Paramount and Platinum Dunes decided to make a few changes over the summer. In fact, we really don’t know what the working script even looks like right now, as Bay has said that the script which was leaked on the internet last year was old and out of date.

In the end, it’s interesting to hear the thoughts of these two creative geniuses on the new Ninja Turtles movie, but it would probably be a bad idea to rely on just one of them to give you a sense for how this film is going to turn out. Eastman has had more experience behind the scenes than Laird has, but that doesn’t mean he knows exactly how the film will turn out. Laird’s criticisms are valid and important to consider, and ultimately they just highlight the fact that the entire TMNT fan base is rather unsure about how to take all this news about the movie. These two rarely agree on everything, but this might just be a case where their disagreement deserves a second look. What do you think? Who’s got the right idea bout this project? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.