Seth Rogen did Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles because Marvel scares him

What does this summer’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated movie have in common with 2011’s oddball superhero flick Green Hornet? A name: Seth Rogen.

While it may not appear to be feathers, they are nonetheless important. Mutant Mayhem’s cap, all the other Seth Rogen-produced comic book adaptations between the two do: There’s Peacher, The Boys” InvincibleMore seasons and spin-offs are on their way. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant MayhemLooks to continue that streak.

The four wisecracking, pizza-scarfing turtles have featured in cartoon shows, movies, and toys for so long that it’s easy for their comic book origins to be eclipsed. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird created a parody comic in 1983 by combining bits from every superhero comic at the time. The Teenagers of New MutantsThe following are some examples of how to get started: New Teen Titans, the mutants of the X-Men, and above all, Frank Miller’s DaredevilThe story of the origin of the ninjas, martial arts and mentor named Wood, as well as a faceless army of evil guys called after an extremity, is based on a strange chemical.

The self-published comics were a huge success, causing an industry that was still struggling to recover from years of consolidation. So it’s It is not clear how to get there. merely that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are an evergreen brand — they’re also a shoe-in for Rogen, who has quietly made a second career of racking up hugely successful comic book adaptations notBased on Warner Bros.

Rogen sat with Polygon to talk about the film he executive produced and co-wrote (including recording the voice for Bebop). The work was done by director Jeff Rowe.The Mitchells vs. MachinesThe film stars Jackie Chan, Ice Cube and Maya Rudolph. Paramount announced that they are already working on both a Paramount Plus TV and sequel. Mutant MayhemIt’s the beginning of a whole new franchise.

[Ed. note: This interview was conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike against the AMPTP went into effect.]

Polygon: My favorite way to talk about TMNT’s arc from comics to a transmedia franchise is to point out that it started with making puns about Daredevil. What do you think it is about this really unique comic about altered reptile karate kids that keeps capturing different generations’ hearts and minds?

Seth RogenSomebody wise once said that all great ideas begin as jokes. It’s my opinion that this definitely falls under that category. The comic was created by two writers of comic books to literally make each other smile. They were they were doodling in their sketchbooks, trying to crack each other up, and that’s where the first images of this came from.

Image: Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird

Like great writers, the teens added something to it that makes it undeniably relatable. It’s the word that makes it become a thing people remember for over 40 years. It’s because they’re teenagers, and they feel this desire to be a part of the normal world, and this desire to be understood, and that they’re fun and kind of reckless and immature. It’s the reason they have resonated for so many years. To me, it’s the thing that I thought was also the most underexplored. But it started, literally, as a comic book, and then became a Saturday morning cartoon and became toys — a lot of toys.

It was a great toy. I was amazed at how much thought and creativity went into the toys. There were many odd details, as well as artistic elements. Jeff and me [Rowe] always talk about is how the Mondo Gecko toy — his tail had a roller skate tied to it, suggesting that [laughs]He thought it would be too heavy to drag so, he put on a pair of roller skates and rolled it in front of him. I have been thinking about those little imaginative things for the past 35 years.

Then there are the movies. I skateboarded because of the Ninja Turtles, and I did karate — it really tapped into a lot of things that were really popular in the ’80s, and ’90s as well. The Ninja Turtles were always trying to achieve something, and I felt that I was a constant victim of it.

You’re quietly one of the biggest producers of indie comics adaptations in Hollywood. Preacher, The Boys, InvincibleThen, you can go back and forth. Green Hornet. How would you describe your taste for comics? How would you describe the type of comic you like? Yes, this is what I would like to do for the next year?

Well, first of all, it’s everything that is not Marvel and DC. [laughs]That eliminates many things right away. I grew up going to comic book shops, and it’s funny, video stores are making a slight comeback in some ways. This idea of browsing and not having things fed to you — as I think people feel we are now when it comes to entertainment — but instead entering the fair market of entertainment and just wandering around and seeing what catches your eye.

That’s what I always did with comic books; I would go to the comic book shop and I would just walk around. You see? You can also find out more about this by clicking here. You see a comic book that catches your attention. The following are some examples of how to use It’s a comic book that catches your attention. Those have been the things that have really inspired us and made us want to work on these things for a long time — coupled with the inclination that you have something to add to it. There are a lot of comic books I love and things I love, but I’m like, What else would you like to add?

Love, you? Akira — what am I going to add to Akira? Things like that, where it’s out, and it’s good, it’s a movie and it exists. That’s something we think of also. It’s something we also consider. [Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem]Honesty [co-writer Evan Goldberg and I]We felt there was a facet that had not been explored. As people who’ve written many teenage films, as well as being cinematically associated with this genre for many years, Oh, like, that’s totally different for this, is if we do a teenage version of it. It’s mostly just the thinking. Could we bring this to life well and do it in a way that, as fans of it, we wouldn’t be annoyed with ourselves if we were watching it from the outside?

Image: Paramount Pictures| Image: Paramount Pictures

What is it that has you turned off of Marvel and DC comics?

Fear is probably the most likely answer. [laughs]Evan and myself have both been writing for more than 20 years. It’s a fear of the process, honestly. Knowing nothing about how the filmmaking process works, I can say this. Marvel has a number of things that I enjoy.

It’s mostly a fear of how would we plug into the system they have in place, which seems like a very good system, and a system that serves them very well. Is it something that would make us frustrated? And what’s nice about [Mutant Mayhem] is that we’re the producers of this. We dictated both the system and the process. And that’s what’s also appealing for us about The Boys and the other bigger franchise-y type things we’ve done, is that we are creating the infrastructure and process for them, not plugging into someone else’s infrastructure and process. We’re control freaks!

Animation films and those with a larger budget can also be challenging. You must have learned a lot from those projects. Mutant Mayhem?

The way I handle them is very similar. That’s something that I realized I used to think was a bug, and now I think it’s a feature. [laughs]People who create animated movies approach them in the same way as animations. From a writer’s perspective, they constantly consider how best to utilize the medium, such as the editing pattern or scene layout. I’m firmly from the live-action world and so I very much write in the style of a live-action movie.

To me, I’m trying to bring what I would consider a traditional cinematic sensibility to the structure and the flow and how the scenes are, and not play too much into the medium in that way. Then, to make the film look like it was just insanely crazy, that’s a great way to color the movie.

At first, I was surprised by the big change in style. The more I looked at it, the more it excited me. I started thinking about it and writing toward it. Okay, here’s the crazy look. This look is crazy. What would I like to see? [laughs] What is fun to watch on TV?

What comics are on your list of adaptations? Or, alternatively, what comics are you reading these days that you can’t put down?

That’s a good question. What The following are some of the most effective ways to improve your own language skills.Have you read anything lately? Every now and then, I’ll read some old comics. There’s these Green Lantern comics I’ve been reading, I love all those Grant Morrison Superman ones, I was rereading those because I heard that that’s what the James Gunn Superman movie was gonna be inspired by. The first time I read these comics, I got distracted and went back to them.

Do you have any ideas that we should make or modify? Do you do it every once in awhile? Yeah, Grant Morrison’s are great. We3 is something I’m a big fan of. I was saddened by it.

[Ed. note: We3 is a comic series written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Frank Quitely about a trio of weaponized cyborg-animal hybrids. It’s infamous for its extreme violence and extreme pathos.]

We’ve kind of been down that road — and we know Grant a little bit, we’ve talked to him. That’s what’s nice, is we’ve done well with things that were traditionally considered unmakeable, essentially, for a long time. But also we don’t want to ruin things we love. So we’ll have very honest conversations with Grant and just talk about it and where his head’s at, and where our heads are at. What about? We3, we’ve talked to him about several times over the years. And we’re kind of always like, Yeah, I just don’t think this is the thing right now. There’s things like that — we really talk to the creators to make sure that we all think it’s a good idea, at that moment, in that way.