Live from New York, it's…the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Deadline has reported that Paramount Pictures are developing a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie and they've tapped Casey and Colin Jost with writing the screenplay.
Paramount relaunched the franchise back in 2014 with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which was followed by a sequel in 2016, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. While the first film was reasonably successful, the sequel was a bit of a box-office bomb, which led to Paramount scrapping the planned third installment. While it's not known exactly what this new live-action film will be about beyond revolving around the turtles, Michael Bay, Andrew Form, Brad Fuller, Scott Mednick, and Galen Walker have all returned as producers. Colin Jost is best known as the head writer of Saturday Night Live, as well as the host of Weekend Update alongside Michael Che. He will also be co-writing and starring in Worst Man, a wedding comedy for Universal that also stars SNL's Pete Davidson. The film follows a "soon-to-be-married couple and the family dramatics that ensue just weeks before the wedding."
This new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles project is separate from the animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie being produced by Seth Rogen for Nickelodeon. That project is set to be directed by Jeff Rowe (The Mitchells vs the Machines) from a script by Brendon O'Brien (Neighbors: Sorority) and is already slated for an August 11, 2023 release. While speaking with Insider last year, Seth Rogen said, "When I look at 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,' the teenage part was weirdly what stuck out to me the most. I think one thing we've been pretty consistently good at over the years is creating material about teenagers, from 'Blockers,' 'Good Boys,' and 'Superbad.' That was really what became exciting for us is how do we make a great action-adventure movie that's also a great teenage movie."