In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, after years of being sheltered from the human world, the Turtle brothers set out to win the hearts of New Yorkers and be accepted as normal teenagers through heroic acts. Their new friend April O’Neil helps them take on a mysterious crime syndicate, but they soon get in over their heads when an army of mutants is unleashed upon them.
The movie is now available to buy or rent on Digital, and we recently spoke with the co-creator of these iconic characters, Kevin Eastman, to get his thoughts on the critically acclaimed animated blockbuster.
In May 1984, Eastman and Peter Laird self-published the first black & white issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a forty-page oversized comic that had an initial print run of only 3,275 copies after being largely funded by a $1,000 loan from Eastman's uncle. The title soon took off in a huge way and the franchise has since become a global phenomenon with multiple big and small screen adaptations.
Mutant Mayhem is already being hailed as perhaps the best one yet and when we sat down to talk with Kevin, we got his thoughts on what Mutant Mayhem brings to the franchise, the movie's surprise twist ending, his memorable cameo, and much more.
Check out our full interview with the legendary Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles creator in the player below.
Mutant Mayhem delivers both an exciting and incredibly faithful take on these characters, but I’m curious to begin with what it was you, their co-creator, most appreciated when you finally got to sit down and watch the movie?
I think, honestly, it was [the story] being told from the same place of love and passion that Peter [Laird] and I told the original stories from. You can tell that Jeff [Rowe], Seth [Rogen], and Evan [Goldberg] love this concept. It wasn’t like, ‘Hey, let’s pick some popular themes, throw them in a blender, and see what comes out.’ They really wanted to take their favourite moments, the heart and soul, and family, and emotional aspects - which are so critical to telling a good story - and carefully crafted something that not only told a great story but resonated with having teenagers do the voices of the Turtles. It was so organically, beautifully blended together in a place where you just enjoy it with a grin on your face the whole time and say, ‘Oh my God, this is fantastic.’ I love it.
The way the movie ends sets up a pretty wild new status quo for these characters as they leave the sewers and head for school - how did you feel about that development?
Well, it’s definitely [different]. It’s something where we always loved the secrecy and secret identity of different characters like Spider-Man. He was obviously a big inspiration when it comes to having a teenager in high school, but we have tried a few concepts even on Nickelodeon where they’d have a cloaking device which made them look like teenagers and they’d go out for a Pizza Friday thing. But it’s always been on the cusp and we’ve never found a way to make it would that would be acceptable. I think because of the pop culture-isms of there being so many comic book universe stories that have been done in a way that’s it’s becoming more accepted, you can now cross that line and make it more of an accepted thing than you could have done even five or ten years ago. I think the timeliness of it was right and it was an idea we wanted to try, even adding a female Turtle into some of the original comics that we’re still working on. The timing was right and I think it works real good. It feels story-first, organic, and not forced. It feels like it was meant to be that way.
This is one of, if not the, best-reviewed movie of the year; what’s it been like to see Turtlemania run wild and to think there are a lot of people out there who will soon discover your and Peter’s work for the first time?
When I use the word humbling, it’s true and it’s appropriate. I think even when Nickelodeon brought back the 2012 animated series, it was right after the comic series we’d released in 2011 but that really set up the animated series. It could have quite easily failed and not found its mark with the younger audience, so the fact it did start to resonate with them…these young people have found something really special about it and had no history with them before. They fell in love with it and something clicked. Here we are now and it’s been over ten years since that series heading into 2023 and we have this new thing. We do ten to fifteen comic shows a year and it’s seeing whole families coming dressed up as the Turtles, from mom down to the kids and they have a love for our characters. It’s pretty emotional. It’s cool.
You get your own Stan Lee-style cameo here, so what did that scene mean to you and how was it stepping into the recording booth?
You know, kudos to them. I have great appreciation and admiration for the creative team because they could have had me standing there selling a newspaper or something but they made it a moment where, in a movie based around Splinter’s issues with the humans, and for me to then be a human that helps them…it was just a beautifully poignant scene and really respectful. I appreciate them thinking of me to do that because it was emotional and great. I was pretty excited and very grateful.
We’ve now seen a lot of film and television adaptations of this franchise, but what are your thoughts on what Mutant Mayhem adds to their on-screen legacy?
I think you touched on it a bit earlier with the accessibility and freshness to it. One of the most unique ideas in the movie I thought was the creation of the Turtles and the mutation process with the ‘Ooooze’ - it rolls off the tongue [Laughs] - with the other mutant characters they’ve created. It gives us a storytelling platform that’s unique to itself and the Mayhem Universe, but it also creates this wonderful platform and bond to tell lots of different stories. Yeah, man, I guess it’s just exciting to think about the possibilities of where it can go and, to me, as a fan and a proud dad and co-parent, I’m excited to see what comes next.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is now available to buy or rent on Digital.