Teenage Mutant Ninja Uh-oh

Howdy ho, partners. It's Friday, and you're still alive. Praise be to the talking trash heap for allowing us all to survive this long, am I right? Let's kick off Friday with a group of heroes whose enemies are the Foot Clan. Get it? "Kick off Friday"...because the foot clan is what you'd use to kick...you know what, cut a man some slack on this weekend eve, okay? The news is that they've finally assigned new screenwriters to tackle the relaunch of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which Paramount has flagged as a huge priority and the source of their next big franchise. They are putting some serious attention into this, which is a good thing considering that a leaked internal memo contained the note "draft not looking good" next to the TMNT reboot. HeatVision is reporting that Art Marcum and Matt Holloway have been hired to fix things. My first suggestion:
Because nothing will sell tickets quite like hot skinny blonde chicks making the ducky face...and Donatello sucks. Seriously, you know that conversation went "There's only three of us, how can we go as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Oh, wait, Donatello sucks balls and only has a stick. Nevermind." That or somewhere at that party there is a sad girl with a stick eating a lot of guacamole dip. Now, the good news about Marcum and Holloway is that they wrote the original Iron Man. The bad news is that movie was by all accounts largely improvised, with the scripted stuff being the worst part...and they did Punisher War Zone...and are slated to do Highlander and Buck Rogers reboots. Peter Laird, who invented the turtles during what was obviously an experimental phase of his life, has said the idea is to weave CGI and live-action this time out. Basically, they are talking about something akin to Where the Wild Things Are, which doesn't get enough credit for the beautiful blend of CGI faces and costumed bodies. The other interesting thing is that they've discussed a Batman Begins style reboot, with the origins retold a bit grittier. Honestly, they walk this weird tightrope here. I personally think they're better off skewing towards younger audiences, as that's (A) where the money is and (B) where the material suggests going. I want bad-ass ninja action, to be sure, but why not keep it a bit lighter. I don't see "gritty" and "real" combining well with ooze-enhanced turtles that wear belts and eat pizza.

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I'm officially toying with my friend's emotion

The easiest way to explain this is SAT question style: Spiderman is to Ryan, as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is to Cameron. Now, don't get me wrong, my beloved cartoonish fetish spouts phrases like "With great power, comes great responsibility" whereas his says "Cowabunga," so that formula isn't perfect. Still, I remember the interminable suffering I experienced whilst waiting for them to finally make a live-action version of Spidey I could truly enjoy. Let's face it, although thrilling in the 1990s, the original non-animated TMNT movie eventually led to this:



I included this clip because it featured Vanilla Ice giving his rationale for why he accepted the job. Previously, I thought the answer was "during this time in my life, I just do whatever the great Lord Satan tells me to. If I disobey, he'll instantly take my fame away and leave me starring in a Vh1 reality show with a dude porn star, and nobody wants that." Anyway, Cambo, buck up buddy because we have some real movement on a live-action turtle flick that presumably doesn't involve the worst rapper this side of Andy Rooney. According to Deadline, Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes production company is going to be stepping in to help the $60 million flick get rolling. This involvement means we're likely going to actually see this sooner than later, as this company gets shit done, yo. See, turtle-lovers, there's nothing to worry about, whenever Platinum Dunes and Michael Bay is involved, you know the story is the single most important thing. Oh, and April O'Neal will now have size 38 DD breasts, all of the turtles will be equipped with rocket launching machine guns, and at least one of them is going to be crazy racist. GOOOOOO TURTLES!

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No "Lost" today, what could substitute? Turtles?

I know that nothing will salve the wound in your heart left by the absence of "Lost" this week. I have no idea why they're doing this to us, other than to make us so rabid for the remaining episodes as to be a danger to ourselves and others. Seriously, I just punched the mailman because he said "See you later" and it sounded like "Sawyer" and I yelled "YOU BASTARD WHY WOULD YOU REMIND ME?" I shouldn't tell people about that. Anyhoodle, I'll be back tomorrow with a fancy new post on some percolating theories and speculations to this point in the season. It will be kind of like a time out in football at the two minute warning. Man, there's a football reference that reminds me that there's still something like 17 weeks before the NFL season actually begins. WHY DOES GOD HATE ME LIKE THIS?!

The following is not going to make ME feel any better about the above (especially about the mailman, he hasn't moved in like an hour). It will, however, make someone I know trip balls (that's the legal, medical term).
This image is from LatinoReview. It's also more than likely NOT real. This is a shame, because they are, in fact, making a live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, and this would be a great look for them. The plan as it stands now is to make live suits and then CGI the face a bit, which is what made Where the Wild Things look so great. Since this image was posted on the 'net, a bunch of people have come forth saying that it's a student project. I don't really care. I didn't ever think this was real, I just thought that people should see it and see the reaction to it so that the studio can possibly gauge our reactions. I give this a solid A grade for coolness. What say you?

Road paved for turtle/sponge showdown

This is a slow news day. How slow? Thanks for asking imaginary person who is always somehow interested in every single thing I'm talking about! It's so slow that I'm going to now give you news about a once popular property that was sold for $60 million to Viacom, the gang who owns Nickelodeon, which has both awesome and terrifying programming for children and then just terrifying programming for toothless adults after 8 pm. THR is reporting that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are now joined with Spongebob Squarepants and other such silly properties. This doesn't change the planned live-action movie in 2012 that's underway but does now include a CGI TV show to premiere about that time and allows the franchise to reach a larger audience, something that makes this guy happy:

Other things that make that guy happy include:

and, sadly:

I hope everyone saw that coming.

Because people who read my shiznit love TMNT

I don't know each and every one of you reading this right now...okay, maybe I do, I just don't know that I do. But I do know that at least some of you reading this are apeshit nerds for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and aren't even shy or ashamed about that like you should be. Need I remind you that there was a movie of said martial-artist reptiles that featured VANILLA ICE repeated yelling "Go ninja, go ninja, go!" See:



If you are a fan of TMNT, you are okay with that. Anyhoodle (yes, I'm aware I mocked others for watching TMNT and then used "anyhoodle"...deal with it), Variety is reporting that a writer has been hired to bring the little headband wearing mothertruckers back to life in live-action form. That writer's name is John Fusco and he also wrote Young Guns and Hidalgo. Wait...what? Horses and turtles have nothing in common! Seriously, have you tried to ride a turtle? It sucks, as they are very smooshable. Horses, notsomuch. Although I hope this means more work for Emilio Estevez (who is more than willing to do a terrible Asian accent for Splinter), I'm a little concerned about what this means for the turtles. See, Hidalgo was basically a love story between a dude and his horse. I'm not okay with that. This means we could be seeing some human-on-turtle action, and we've got kids to think about here. I'm not sure the tone they're going to go for (I heard it will be serious), but I have to encourage them to go for the humorous angle. You simply can't sell this concept in live-action form and have it not end with this:



You just remember that.