In almost every big screen outing for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, they've faced off against their arch nemesis Oroku Saki aka Shredder. That won't be the case in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem as a whole host of mutant baddies led by Ice Cube's Superfly.
However, director Jeff Rowe recently revealed that earlier versions of the film did feature the claw-wielding leader of the Foot Clan.
"We obviously toyed with other versions of Shredder being the villain. We went into it pretty open, but at the end of the day, the villain needed to be a mutant like the turtles because so much of the movie is about mutants versus humans and the turtles perceptions around that. It just worked so much better when he was a mutant and when he had kind of a similar backstory to the turtles."
"It allowed them to relate and it gave Splinter a chance to also grow and arc in the film and when we made that choice things just started coming together and we're like, 'Shredder is great. There's gotta be a Shredder movie at some point, but this one just isn't it.'"
Previously, Rowe hinted that there might be a Shredder tease at the end of Mutant Mayhem.
"We'll Dark Knight it," he said, referring to Commissioner Gordon whipping out a Joker card at the end of Batman Begins. "When you've grown and you've become confident as a teenager, to then go up against a foe that is three times scarier than anything you've ever seen before, that's interesting and dramatic."
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem hits domestic North American theaters on August 02, 2023.
The film stars Nicolas Cantu (Leonardo), Sharon Brown Jr. (Mikey), Micah Abbey (Donnie), Brady Noon (Raph), Jackie Chan (Splinter), Ayo Edebiri (April), Ice Cube (Superfly), Seth Rogen (Bebop), John Cena (Rocksteady), Paul Rudd (Mondo Gecko), Rose Byrne (Leatherhead), Post Malone (Ray Fillet), Hannibal Buress (Genghis Frog), Natasia Demetriou (Wing Nut), Maya Rudolph (Cynthia Utrom), and Giancarlo Esposito (Baxter Stockman)!
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.