Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles': Untold Story of the Movie "Every Studio in Hollywood" Rejected. In 1. 98. 8, comic book movies were considered box- office poison. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a 2014 American action adventure film based on the Mirage Studios characters of the same name. It is the fifth film in the Teenage. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie is the live-action, feature film adaptation of the cult comic book and the popular animated television show. After prolonged. As much as I’ve really enjoyed this latest interpretation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, there has been one major issue from the get go. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows cast is very much up for a third installment. But what are the chances that it'll actually happen? The stink of flop Howard the Duck was still pungent in the air, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace had just sentenced the Man of Steel to movie jail and Tim Burton's Batman was still a year away from revolutionizing the genre. So it's no surprise every major studio in Hollywood turned up their noses at a movie about four talking turtles who do Ninjitsu, eat pizza and live in the sewers beneath New York. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles survived script fights, horrific- to- wear 7. After opening 2. 5 years ago, on March 3. Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo and Donatello. ![]() Its unlikely journey from page to $1. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird caught the eye of Gary Propper, a surfer dude and road manager for watermelon- smashing comic Gallagher. Propper became obsessed with the idea of making the movie, and teamed up with producer Kim Dawson, who handled Gallagher's comedy specials at Showtime. The pair convinced Eastman and Laird to let them option the live- action rights, and they brought comic- turned- screenwriter Bobby Herbeck on board to write the script. It seemed like a slam dunk. Propper, Dawson and Herbeck began pitching the movie around Hollywood — to deaf ears.'ARE YOU GUYS OUT OF YOUR MINDS?'It's 1. Ninja Turtles has recently become a successful Playmate toy line and an animated series, but nobody wants to make the movie. Herbeck has his eye on Golden Harvest, a Hong Kong- based studio known for releasing 'Enter the Dragon'and other Bruce Lee martial arts films. Kim Dawson, producer: Gary and I made the rounds to virtually every studio in Hollywood. I had worked at Showtime, and one of my first calls was to Peter Chernin, who went on to run Fox for a long time. But Peter goes, "Are you guys out of your minds?" Howard the Duck was just released. Nobody felt like a comic book could be converted into a live- action character. Bobby Herbeck, screenwriter: I'm writing a movie for Golden Harvest at the time and think they would be perfect for this, because we need martial arts guys. I go to [Golden Harvest exec] Tom Gray and we have a drink after work and I pitch it to him. Tom Gray, Golden Harvest head of production, 1. I said, "I don't want anything to do with this. This is not going to work." But Bobby persisted over three or four months. Finally, he said, "Just do me a favor will you? Kim is coming in from Orlando. He wants to meet with you. Just have a lunch with him."Dawson: We had lunch together. Bobby, myself and Tom, somewhere in Westwood. Tom had gotten up from the table, basically saying, "You guys are crazy." Then it kind of clicked. Gray: I said in a lightbulb moment, "Wait a minute. This is nothing more than four of our Chinese stuntmen in rubber suits. We can make this movie for peanuts in Hong Kong."The Turtles with Jim Henson and director Steve Barron. Courtesy of Steve Barron.'DIDN'T THINK MUCH OF ME AS A WRITER'On June 1. Gray sends a memo to Golden Harvest owner Raymond Chow, who greenlights the project at $3 million. Herbeck flies to Northhampton, Mass.,to get the Turtles creators' blessing on the script treatment. Herbeck: I thought, "I'm there for a month, max." Right? I was wrong. It was six or eight weeks. Never saw two guys who disagreed so much. It got to the point where when I met with them, I could tell by their body language and their eyes. If Peter was looking down at the floor, I would just go right into, "What didn't you like, Peter?" Peter, from the beginning, he didn't think much of me as a writer. I was a "Hollywood type" infringing on his artistic chops and characters. The boys finally signed off on the story and off I went to England to write the script, where director Steve Barron was based, as was Jim Henson and the Creature Shop. Gray: I always thought it would be interesting to have someone who was coming out of MTV videos to amp this up visually. To make it a little bit younger. Director Steve Barron was suggested to us. We looked at his reel. He had done all this great stuff with A- ha. He had done "Billie Jean" with Michael Jackson. He had a very good visual style. Steve Barron, director: I didn't want to do something that was bloody. I didn't want to watch that film. Funnily enough, Batman came out at the same time. It was that sort of tone I was already aiming for. The films that I loved, there was a sense of humor but a sense of peril as well. Of real peril, of grounded peril. Like something that had repercussions for what you did but had a wonderful sense of fun with it. I was a big fan of Ghostbusters. Kevin Eastman, co- creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: We had our doubts until we met Steve Barron. He came in and had gone through the comic books, and picked out scenes from [issue] number one or number 1. Here's the movie." Steve Barron was such a fan of the comic book series, and he was aware of the animated series. He said, "We need to make a hybrid." I think most of the themes from the first movie were pulled from the original comic books — from the retreat out to the countryside to some of the fight sequences at April's apartment to the origin story. Simon Fields, producer: Bobby Herbeck was a comic, and we were not sold on the tone of his script. It had too many quips and one liners. We brought in Todd Langen, who worked on adapting it for several months.'WE CAN'T AFFORD JIM HENSON, FOR GOD'S SAKE!'Steve Barron had worked with Jim Henson previously, and wants him for TMNT. The $3 million budget Tom Gray pitched to Golden Harvest owner Raymond Chow is beginning to rise toward $6 million- plus. Gray: Steve and Simon said, "Who's going to do all of the animatronics?" and asked, "What about going to Jim Henson?" I said, "Oh my God, we can't afford Jim Henson, for God's sake!" Steve said, "Let me see what I can work out."Barron: I was on the mission to talk Jim into it, because he wasn't sure. I showed him the comic book, and it was very violent. It had a lot of blood on the page. He wasn't sure whether he'd have the Creature Shop involved. In the end, he very sweetly agreed to do it, because I'd convinced him that the tone was going to come from a good place, and that it wouldn't damage his legacy. Fields: Steve had been directing some of the series called The. Story. Teller for Jim Henson. We had done some videos for David Bowie for the movie Labyrinth. Henson loved Steve. The Creature Shop had never lent their name to an outside project, and I don't think they did again. Barron: We were on the edge of new technology. Jim Henson said, "On each show, I figure we're going to have to invent one new technology to make the show work. On Turtles, I've got to invent nine."Gray: It had never been done before at that scale. We needed these things to be able to move without wires because of their kung fu fighting. The first turtles that came out, their heads were as big as television sets. Dawson: There were two sets of turtle costumes. The "action turtles" had no electronics in them. The ones that had all the facial expressions and whatnot had all of the little radio controlled motors in them that controlled the eye movements and the mouth and the eyebrows. Henson had created them and stuck them in the back of the turtle shell, along with all of the cooling devices. THE TURTLES ASSEMBLEBy early 1. New York actors Josh Pais, Leif Tilden and Michelan Sisti, and U. K. actor- stuntman Brian Foreman have been cast as the Turtles. Their grueling journey has just begun. Michelan Sisti,Michelangelo: For the audition, I came up with my full- tilt bozo version of martial arts, because I had no idea what martial arts was. Steve Barron was in a tiny office, and the audition ended when I gave my then- version of a roundhouse kick. I put my foot through the wall. So there I was with my foot stuck in the wall, and Steve laughed, which is the best thing that could have happened. He said, "Anyone who would put that much energy and go to that extreme for an audition deserves to be one of my Turtles."Josh Pais, Raphael: They flew me to London to Jim Henson's Creature Shop, and I was body casted from head to toe, every inch of me except for two straws in my nose. It was super intense. They told us afterward that they kept us in that plaster longer than they needed to, just to see if we would freak out. Leif Tilden, Donatello: I go in and Falcor's head from Never Ending Story is right there. I'm like "Oh my God!" There's Yoda in the corner. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV Series 1. Edit. This show tells the adventures of four turtles who were transformed into humanoids by a strange ooze and were trained as ninja by a human martial arts master, Hamato Yoshi, who was changed into a humanoid rat, Splinter, by the same substance. Together with the intrepid reporter, April O'Neil, they fight against the threats against the world, like Shredder and Krang. Written by. Kenneth Chisholm < kchishol@execulink. Plot Summary|Add Synopsis.
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