As the cinematic universe concept continues to gain popularity, new entries are going to attempt to shoulder their way into the already overcrowded market. Every big name from the 20s to the 90s seems poised to put out an ever-expanding film franchise, but not every attempt can hope to succeed.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles brand has a comfortable presence on every major media platform, from cartoons to comics, to video games and beyond. Their appearances on the big screen have been somewhat limited as of late, thanks to some controversial recent entries. Turtle fans shouldn't be waiting too much longer though, because Paramount is preparing to put out a ton of new features.
Of the TMNT projects currently in the works, the big name is Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's upcoming animated film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem! That film is scheduled for next August, but it's far from the only film of its kind. Paramount is attempting to rebuild the brand after the difficult legacy of Michael Bay's tenure with the franchise. Bay and most of the films' stars were under contract for a trilogy, but no third entry is coming. Instead, Paramount is planning a reboot of the live-action Turtles outings, announcing last year that SNL funnyman Colin Jost and his brother Casey have signed on to write the script. In addition, Paramount also stated that they'd be producing a series of solo movies for some of their most popular villains. Almost nothing is known beyond that, but it does raise some interesting questions.
Those who follow genre film would recognize a similar strategy as the one currently killing Sony's Spider-Man universe, sometimes known as the SSU. After the mild financial success of Venom, a film that many fans were demanding for decades, the SSU has made a series of bizarre choices. Its crowning achievement was Morbius, which released to disappointing sales and awful reviews. The overwhelming meme culture that rallied around mocking the film led Sony to blindly re-release the film, creating one of the funniest moments of corporate myopia in modern history. Add in the poor reception for Venom's sequel and low hope for their upcoming follow-ups, and things are looking grim for the SSU. Most fans don't seem interested in the ongoing attempts to turn Spidey's rogues gallery into anti-heroes, but do the Ninja Turtles have a cast of antagonists who earn their solo projects?
There's one villain that everyone associates with the Turtles, and he's also the only one guaranteed to make it to the screen if Paramount starts using villains. Shredder is the TMNT villain with the most interesting backstory, the most name recognition, and the most overall fan goodwill. The tale of Oroku Saki, a ninja who grows up in intense rivalry with a fellow warrior and eventually turns into a vicious life of crime, could be a great standalone film. Most of the cartoons and comics have taken some time out to depict the old rivalry between the men who would become Shredder and Splinter, so a full film adaptation of that story would be solid. Anyone could see that narrative's merits, but are there any other villains worth the feature film treatment?
Most Ninja Turtle antagonists are either fellow mutated animals or strange otherworldly forces. A creature like Krang probably can't carry a full picture, given his presence as an overarching villain. The Utrom and his robot body likely won't work outside the role of antagonist to the Turtles. Many villains lack the depth to carry a full picture. Someone like Wingnut, Leatherhead, or Armaggon would need a page-one rewrite to warrant a 90-minute story. A few Turtle villains lack any sort of consistency, leaving most of their character to be determined each time. Rat King, for example, has been in most iterations of the Ninja Turtles story, but he's different almost every time. The ancient chaos god version of the IDW comics would carry an interesting story, but the typical homeless Pied Piper might struggle. The problem that TMNT is going to run into is comparable to the one the SSU is slowly suffocating under.
If the filmmakers brought in to handle these theoretical TMNT villain movies need to find what fans love about the characters they're handling and bring it to the screen. This is the trick that James Gunn seems to have mastered, falling in love with characters who have almost no source material and sharing that feeling with the world. Sony keeps trying to skate off of name recognition while also only using their smallest names to minimize risk. If Paramount intends to pull anything worthwhile out of their cast of characters, their creators have to overcome a difficult format. Sony has provided a series of helpful lessons on mistakes to avoid, but Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' villain solo movies still have an uphill battle.