It’s been nearly a decade since the last live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, but THR reports that a new project is finally in the works. Unfortunately, another live-action project based on The Last Ronin may have been shelved to accommodate this new movie.
The outlet reports that Fast & Furious franchise producer Neal H. Moritz is in negotiations to reboot the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise for Paramount Pictures. Multiple sources have said that the studio wants to “Sonic-fy” the franchise. As the three films in the Sonic the Hedgehog series have grossed over $1.2 billion worldwide, that makes sense. Moritz is the producer behind the Sonic movies. “If you want Sonic, you go to the guy who did Sonic,” said one insider.
However, as I mentioned above, this isn’t good news for the other live-action Ninja Turtles project that has been in the works for a few years. The studio was developing an R-rated adaptation of The Last Ronin, the comic mini-series written by TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman and Tom Waltz. Nobody filmmaker Ilya Naishuller was in talks to direct, but the project has been put on the back burner as “the new regime wasn’t keen on having the first non-animated movie in 10 years be a bloody, adult-skewing story.” However, it could be revisited in future, but for now, the future of the Ninja Turtles is looking more family-friendly.
The last live-action film in the franchise was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, released in 2016. The sequel earned mixed reviews but was a box office bomb, grossing just $246 million worldwide. Plans for a third film were cancelled, and we didn’t see the turtles in theaters again until the release of the animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem in 2023. A sequel to Mutant Mayhem is in the works for a September 17, 2027 release.
The original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film is still a lot of fun. Give me dudes in rubber suits over CG turtles any day. The film actually had a theatrical re-release several months ago, and it was so successful that the sequel, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, will also receive a re-release in March 2026 to celebrate its 35th anniversary.
