It was reported a few weeks ago, and mentioned on the Big Shiny Podcast, that Megan Fox had been cast as April O’Neil for Michael Bay’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles explosion-a-thon.
Now, the four heroes in a half shell have been cast as well.
Alan Ritchson, Pete Ploszek, Jeremy Howard, and Noel Fisher have all been tapped to play Raphael, Leonardo, Donatello, and Michelangelo respectively according to Deadline.
Deadline also had this to say,
Now, the turtles in the original movies were kind of interchangeable, stuffed into those cheesy costumes, but this is supposed to be a more sophisticated Avatar-like approach.
First off, I would like to note that I take issue with “those cheesy costumes”. I watch the original TMNT film at minimum once a year, and those costumes, even decades later, hold up incredibly well. It isn’t until the subsequent films that the costume quality falls a bit, and even then the only ones that I really think are poorly done are from the third film . . . but I digress.
I’m curious to see exactly what is meant by an “Avatar-like approach” to the motion-capture performance these actors will be participating in. Does this mean some of the actors’ features will be somehow incorporated into the turtles so it can somewhat be determined that “Oh, that’s Alan Ritchson from Blue Mountain State playing Raphael!” – which would be kind of weird; or is it more or less speaking of body language portrayal? The latter seems to make the most sense – unless they give the turtles a more “humanized” look, in which case, be ready for TMNT fans to riot in the streets.
I don’t hide the fact that I am less-than-thrilled with what I am hearing about this new TMNT film thus far. Michael Bay’s involvement has be incredibly doubtful, and the decision to cast Megan Fox as “the female lead” (come on, it’s April) made me groan. I am on the fence about Jonathan Liebesman, despite the popular opinion, I quite enjoyed Battle Los Angeles, but Wrath of the Titans was the worst film I have seen in a long time. However, nothing about this casting of the turtles has me terribly worried, I am actually happy they avoided “big name” actors and went with some relatively unknowns – hopefully it pans out well in the voice and motion-capture departments.
Ninja Turtles is shooting for a June 6, 2014 release, and as much as I hate to admit it, I’m sure no matter how this film turns out my curiosity will begrudgingly drag me to the theater opening day.
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