And the working title for the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie is…

Lots of people have been sharing their thoughts on Michael Bay’s statement that the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie will be based around the choice to have the Turtles be “an alien race.” First the spotlight went to Bay, then it was on director Jonathan Liebesman, then back to Bay, and then over to co-creator Peter Laird.

And now, after all that, there’s one big piece of news which has popped up that is even more indicative of the new direction Bay and Liebesman are intending to take the Turtles.  Bleeding Cool has a scoop that the working title for the movie is, in fact:

NINJA TURTLES.  So any ideas that it would maybe be called Teenage Alien Ninja Turtles can be put to rest now.  According to one of the sources who broke this news, this possible change in the title “seems to be driven by marketing. Think of John Carter and how Disney wouldn’t allow for a title with either ‘Princess’ or ‘Mars.'”

Oh, right! Right, because I’ve been hearing everywhere I go about how that worked so well for Disney and everyone just loves the title JOHN CARTER.  Big hit, that one was.  I suppose it makes sense to drop the “Teenage” in light of their alien origins, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have a more immediately recognizable name than Edgar Rice Burroughs’ creation, but I’m still suspect of using JOHN CARTER as a naming inspiration…

Though to be fair, what else but NINJA TURTLES could the movie be called at this point? And unlike JOHN CARTER, at least the words NINJA TURTLES still tell you something about the movie.  More as it we hear it.

Caption contest time – what’s Bay saying here?