Killing the R-rated Ninja Turtles 'Last Ronin' movie for a 'Sonic-y' reboot is the wrong move

This is a franchise malleable enough to be multiple things at once.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise is one of those inexplicably successful things that has ebbed and flowed through popular culture the the better part of four decades.

It’s been through a long-running comic book, a bunch of animated series adaptations, a bunch of comic book crossover and spinoffs, a bunch of live action reboots and restarts, and a whole lot more.

One thing the movies have never done, though? Grown up with the audience that grew up with them. That’s why fans were understandably so excited when word broke that Paramount was developing a TMNT: Last Ronin movie, which was based on the 2020-2022 comic book of the same name that was a bloody, John Wick-esque affair about the last remaining Turtle looking to avenge the deaths of his brothers in a broken future.

The concept was based on an idea original TMNT creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird cooked up back in the 1980s and shelved, and is one of the coolest things the franchise has done in decades. The comic was a hit, fans loved it, and folks were even more excited when a film project with Nobody director Ilya Naishuller eyed to take the reins (Nobody was a great action flick, if you missed it) was announced.

But now, word has broken that Paramount is lining up producer Neal H. Moritz (who shepherded the wildly successful Sonic the Hedgehog film franchise) to take over direction of the TMNT franchise with something that’ll aim to reinvent it the same way the Sonic movies brought that classic IP to a new audience of fans.

Making that omelette means breaking a lot of eggs, with a recent TMNT animated series getting the axe to clear the way for the new direction, and apparently now the Last Ronin film being put on the shelf, too. Basically, they’re looking to wrap up any ongoing TMNT content so there’s a clean slate for whatever larger plan Moritz wants to cook up next.

But why not just … do both?

There have been live action adaptations of TMNT since the 1990s, and so many different animated and CGI series over the decades it’s hard for even a hardcore fan to keep up with all the different ways the franchise has been adapted, re-adapted, and adapted a few more times along the way.

Which is all to say: this is a franchise people know and understand. Most parents today grew up with it, and most kids these days have run across a cartoon, movie, toy or something with some turtle shells and ooze at this point. After seeing how much money that Sonic trilogy has made, it’s no surprise studio execs are salivating at the prospect of running that playbook again with TMNT. The past few TMNT movies have been… let’s say… less than successful.

Is it over-saturation? Lack of quality? A combination of those and other factors? Who knows. But just trying to do what’s been done before with another family friendly movie series with more of a a Sonic-y vibe just doesn’t inspire a ton of confidence that it’ll do all that much better than the past few movie reboot attempts.

And that begs the question: why not do both? Have Moritz work up his Sonic-inspired plans for a new kid-friendly TMNT trilogy, and also let Naishuller move forward with the Last Ronin project in a more R-rated vein. This IP is known enough that folks would be able to tell the difference, and if nothing else, something unexpected and exciting might have a chance to juice some hype for a franchise that has been pretty quiet for a decade or so at this point.

Marvel has figured out how to make kid-friendly animated Marvel shows right alongside R-rated movies like Deadpool & Wolverine. Audiences are savvy enough to tell the difference, and I’d think most would realize a movie that looked more like John Wick than, well, Sonic the Hedgehog, was probably being made and marketed for adults.

It’s a shame that one of the most exciting projects in this franchise has been shelved, especially when it was the first thing in a long time that actually got fans excited.

Here’s hoping the studio reconsiders and dusts this one off at some point. Because the kids who grew up with TMNT deserve a TMNT movie that’s grown up, too.