The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Writer Wants A Sequel to the 90’s Trilogy
By George Robbins
Over the past few months, it has been a struggle for people in the movie industry to try and come up with ways to move forward with their plans due to the pandemic. This isn’t really all that much of a surprise because what else would people be doing other than figuring out how to both alleviate boredom and plan for the future. Without this pandemic, we would have just seen things continue on their merry way where new movies would have released and there would be new productions taking place. These new productions are now the only things we primarily hear about anymore as people have nothing better to work on within the film industry due to the new guidelines in place. After all, it is kind of hard for movies to release the way things currently stand, especially when it comes to movie theaters.
Movie theaters are in a spot of bother at the moment because they are lacking in both new content and potential customers as people don’t want to go to theaters. Not only are movie theaters a high risk environment, but they have a lack of overall seating now that capacity has been severely limited by new health guidelines. This has made people even less enthused by the whole situation and given people less of a reason to get a small group together to go out and see any kind of movies whatsoever. Even if the restrictions weren’t so bad, people still have no reason to go out to theaters because of the aforementioned lack in variety we have seen with new releases. After studios decided to push back their new movie releases in favor of a better release window, theaters no longer have any upcoming movie releases to play to the public.
Variety is something that is important in every single aspect of life and variety in movie theaters is just as important as variety in the culinary world. If there are more options available to the public, especially more diverse options, then people would much rather spring for that scenario as more choice can health people in the end. The problem with theaters nowadays during this pandemic is that they have almost no new options to give people who actually want to go out to the movies. Therefore, there is no incentive given to the people who want to go out to theaters because there may not be something there that they want to watch. This lack of variety stems directly from studios deciding not to put their films out so that they can instead try and beat out the pandemic for a better release window.
No matter how we look at the current situation for theaters, it all looks grim in the end and we don’t know what will happen with them. Some are closing down until further notice, while big theater chains like AMC are going to be bankrupt by the end of the year. We don’t know if theaters will really ever be the same again, but we do know for a fact that the industry is moving on whether we decide to recognize that fact or not. So if the industry is moving on, then how exactly are they deciding to move forward if they cannot release any of their films that they have been working on? They are just steadily building up a catalog of films that they can set future dates for when things start to calm down with the pandemic. A number of films have been getting back to work recently while there are now many more films currently awaiting their chance to start working.
The best way people in the film industry have been keeping busy despite all that is that they have been trying to come up with new movie ideas to pass the time. Among those ideas is one from writer Bobby Herbeck and producer Kim Dawson which sees the hopefully inevitable return of the ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles‘ to the big screen. The titular turtles Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, Raphael, and their mentor/ father-figure Splinter were originally part of a hit animated show from the late 80’s which showed them in all kinds of situations where they would show off their ninja skills. While the show itself was a hit success, especially among younger crowds, what really cemented its place in pop-culture was the 1990 movie of the same name which brought the turtles to life. Jim Henson’s Creature Shop animatronics brought them to life on screen and many fans still fondly remember the film.
Riding on the back of the TV show’s success, the 1990 live-action movie managed to be a success worthy of an entire live-action trilogy. That popularity never really died down as a new animated movie was made in 2007 and Michael Bay rebooted the films in 2014. However, the popularity of the original trilogy of films was never truly forgotten by the general public. With that fact in mind Bobby Herbeck and Kim Dawson want to bring the original trilogy back into the public eye and give it a proper sequel instead of a reboot like we got in 2014. This is an idea that plenty of fans of the Turtles would probably love to take to fruition but even if this idea gains traction, it will be a long time still before we get to see a new film come out involved with that trilogy. While it could potentially come out a long time from now, it would still be interesting to see happen and at least by then, things should be going back to how they were originally.