cowabunga! The film Ninja Turtles: Teenage Years, which explores the turmoil of youth through the iconic Ninja Turtles, was acclaimed by audiences at the Annecy International Animation Festival, confirming the freedoms its director, Jeff Rowe, claimed with AFP.
The new adaptation of the adventures of Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphaël is being previewed in an ongoing version and is slated to hit theaters on August 9th.
Produced by Seth Rogen (“Supergrave”, “Plumped, Instructions”), it follows the wishes of a sibling of a mutant turtle who secluded himself in the sewers of New York through high school and prom, along with their mentor, the Splinter- Rat who taught them ninjutsu to defend against humans.
Eager to be accepted by the latter, the four brothers decide to take on a mysterious criminal organization, aided by their new friend, high school student and aspiring journalist April O’Neil.
The film, distributed by Paramount, is produced by American broadcaster Nickelodeon, which bought the rights to the saga created in the 1980s by comic book writers Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird in 2009 and has since released two animated series.
“With Seth Rogen and (his close collaborator) Evan Goldberg, we wanted the characters to look like real teenagers, be voiced by real teenagers, and be naturalistic in their rendering,” Jeff Rowe told AFP.
“We also knew that the film had to be different in order to work, that we made bold twists compared to the original universe,” adds the director. “A lot of people are very attached to these characters who were in their heyday in the 1980s/1990s and ‘we didn’t want to spoil everything,'” he continues, hoping fans will “get carried away.”
Combining 3D and various animation techniques, this intriguing story inevitably draws comparisons to the currently hitting theaters, Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse, and its Oscar-winning predecessor, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
“Anything that’s different (stylistically) is compared to the +Spiderverse+,” while the “two films are wildly different,” comments Jeff Rowe.
“There is currently an artistic renaissance that Spider-Man has kind of ushered in,” he analyzes and predicts that “big American animation blockbusters (…) will be much more creative” in the future.