Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is a 2023 American animated superhero comedy film directed by Jeff Rowe, who co-wrote it with Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit. The film is based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters and is a reboot of the related film series. It stars Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Nicolas Cantu, and Brady Noon as the voices of the Turtles, alongside Ayo Edebiri, Maya Rudolph, John Cena, Rogen, Rose Byrne, Natasia Demetriou, Giancarlo Esposito, Jackie Chan, Ice Cube and Paul Rudd. The story follows four anthropomorphic mutant turtles as they seek acceptance by the human world and use their ninja training to face a criminal mutant gang.
Plans for an animated Turtles film with Rogen began in 2018. The film was announced in June 2020, with Rogen, Goldberg, and James Weaver producing through their company Point Grey Pictures, and Rowe as director. Seeking to explore the teenage aspect of the Turtles, the filmmakers drew inspiration from teenage coming-of-age films. The animation was provided by Mikros Animation and Cinesite and was influenced by notebook sketches. In addition to a score composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the film features various classic East Coast hip-hop songs.
Following a work-in-progress screening at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival on June 12, 2023, Mutant Mayhem was released by Paramount Pictures in the United States on August 2. It received positive reviews from critics for its voice acting, screenplay and stylized animation; several critics considered it the best Turtles film. The film was a box office success, grossing $182 million worldwide against its $70 million budget. Its nominations include Best Animated Feature at the 29th Critics' Choice Awards, 51st Annie Awards and 35th Producers Guild of America Awards.
A sequel is set for August 13, 2027. A follow-up television series, Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, debuted on Paramount+ in August 2024, and ran for two seasons before concluding in December 2025.
Plot Techno Cosmic Research Institute (TCRI) executive Cynthia Utrom sends a squad to hunt down rogue scientist Baxter Stockman, who has created a mutagenic ooze with which he intends to form his own mutant animal family, starting with a housefly. Baxter is interrupted by Cynthia's strike force and killed in the resulting explosion, while the mutagen falls into the sewers of New York City. The mutagen turns four turtle brothers—Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo—and a rat named Splinter into humanoid mutants, whereupon Splinter adopts the turtles. Splinter distrusts humanity—particularly after one encounter where he and the turtles were chased away—and trains his sons in the art of ninjutsu, instructing them to only leave their sewer home to steal supplies. Over the years, the Turtles long to live with and like humans their age, much to Splinter's dismay.
Fifteen years later, the Turtles defeat a gang of criminals to recover a stolen moped belonging to a teenager named April O'Neil, revealing themselves and their origins. April, an aspiring journalist, has been investigating a series of robberies of TCRI technology by a criminal known as "Superfly". The Turtles plan to stop Superfly and, through April's reporting, win public acceptance as heroes. They intercept a piece of stolen technology and meet Superfly under the Brooklyn Bridge, discovering that he is not only a mutant himself, but leader of a mutant gang. Ecstatic to meet fellow mutants, the Turtles bond with Superfly and the others and he reveals their creation at the hands of Stockman, explaining that they evaded TCRI and are living on an abandoned ship in Staten Island. He then reveals that he plans to use the stolen technology to mutate every animal on Earth and create a world where mutants have dominance over humans.
The Turtles try to intervene, but the gang escapes with the equipment while a tracker TCRI installed on the equipment falls back with the Turtles, allowing them to be captured. At TCRI headquarters, Cynthia extracts the Turtles' mutagen, but April arrives with Splinter to rescue them. At the gang's hideout, Splinter and the Turtles convince them that their plan for domination will make them no better than the worst of humanity, and together they turn on Superfly, destroying his machine. However, the ooze falls into the water, combining marine wildlife with Superfly, who then transforms into a gigantic whale-like kaiju after grabbing animals from a nearby zoo. He attacks the city and the Turtles and other mutants attempt to stop him but are assumed by the public to be fellow monsters.
Leonardo finds his voice as a leader while April overcomes her anxiety and commandeers a news broadcast to explain the mutants' good intentions and the citizens of New York come to their aid. With the help of the citizens and other mutants, the Turtles drop a canister of TCRI retro-mutagen into Superfly's blowhole, turning him back into a collection of normal animals. Reconciling with Splinter, the Turtles, April, and the mutants are celebrated by the city. The Turtles enroll at April's high school, where they are embraced as heroes.
While the Turtles and April enjoy themselves at prom, they are under surveillance from Cynthia (holding the now unmutated Superfly captive), who plans to recapture the Turtles by enlisting the aid of the mysterious Shredder.
Voice cast
Production Development
Following the release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) and its sequel, Out of the Shadows (2016), Brian Robbins felt that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film series was in dire need of a reboot. He sought advice from longtime Turtles toy manufacturer Playmates Toys, who told him that the reboot should be an animated film. In 2018, Robbins discussed with newly appointed executive vice president of Nickelodeon Animation Studio, Ramsay Naito, who to bring onto the project. Seth Rogen was decided upon, and Jeff Rowe joined the project soon after. In June 2020, Deadline Hollywood reported that Nickelodeon Animation was developing a CG-animated Turtles film for Paramount Pictures. Rowe was hired to direct, from a screenplay by Brendan O'Brien. Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and James Weaver produced through their production company, Point Grey Pictures, which is credited alongside Nickelodeon Movies. Naito and Josh Fagen oversaw production for Nickelodeon and Point Grey, respectively.
In an August 2020 interview with Collider, Rogen said that the film would heavily lean into the teenage element of Turtles. He stated,
In June 2021, Rogen revealed a teaser image through his Twitter page, which contained school notes written by Leonardo, the film's original release date, and other details. By October 2021, the film was under the working title Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Next Chapter. Production designer, Yashar Kassai, elaborated on the project, "You anchor yourself enough in the familiar elements of it so that it is easily recognizable, but then you either add to or enhance some of the existing charm of the franchise." The title Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem had been finalized by August 2022. Kyler Spears joined the film as co-director, signing on because he had worked with Rowe on his prior film, The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021). J.J. Villard was commissioned to design the film's logo. Overall, the budget was $70million at minimum.
Writing Rogen, Goldberg, and Rowe, along with the writing team of Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit, received screenplay credit, with O'Brien and the former three having "story by" billing. Rogen and Rowe wanted the film to emphasize the teenage aspect of the Turtles. Rowe compared Mutant Mayhem to the coming-of-age films, Stand by Me (1986) and Lady Bird (2017) and remarked that his goal was to make "the ultimate teenage coming-of-age film". He described the Turtles as having an "inauthentic confidence that teenagers have", adding that teenagers often ''operate with this hyped-up sense of, 'We can do anything! The writers wanted to create their own version of Turtles lore and did not take all elements from previous iterations into account. Rowe explained that they aimed "to make it more logical", and skated past a lot of things "to make it really operate from a place of character and relatability". Rowe cited his admiration for the classic Turtles toys as the reason why a lot of mutant characters were written into the film.
Shredder was originally the main villain of the film, but was written out because Rowe wanted the film's villain to be a mutant who could relate to the Turtles and who the Turtles could relate to and be tempted by. Superfly was originally going to be a mutated version of Baxter Stockman, a character who has been turned into a mutant fly in past Turtles media. The two ultimately wound up being separate characters. An early draft of Mutant Mayhem was more of a high school film. Rowe explained that with the initial version, it was hard to make the Turtles' lives intersect with the crime villain plot in a natural way, adding that the Turtles had already achieved their goal early on in the script. As a result, the film had to "reset 30 minutes in", and new characters, other kids in the high school, and relationships had to be established. Rowe described it as "tedious". Eventually, in July 2022, Rogen approached Rowe through text message, telling him that the film was "fundamentally broken" and had to be completely changed, a sentiment with which Rowe agreed. Consequentially, in the next four months, the film was completely rewritten and boarded into its final state.
Casting and voice recording
On March 4, 2023, during the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards, Rogen revealed that actors Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Nicolas Cantu, and Brady Noon (all of whom were in attendance) had been cast in the voice roles of the Turtles: Donatello, Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael. Other cast members revealed in their respective roles in the ceremony were Rogen himself, Hannibal Buress, Rose Byrne, John Cena, Jackie Chan, Ice Cube, Natasia Demetriou, Ayo Edebiri, Giancarlo Esposito, Post Malone, Paul Rudd, and Maya Rudolph.
Mutant Mayhem marks the first time all four Turtles are portrayed by teenage actors. Rogen felt that the decision to cast teenagers for the parts in the film, made it stand out from previous versions of Turtles, saying "something very intuitive became something that really opened up our version". Hundreds of actors auditioned for the roles of the Turtles. Rowe watched every tape and narrowed them down to the ones he felt worked. He edited voices into the character designs to see which suited which. After narrowing it down to ten, Abbey, Brown, Cantu, and Noon had a chemistry table read together, with them ultimately landing the roles. Rowe described the four as "perfect", and the table read as "kinetic and alive". In recruiting Chan, he wrote a letter to him asking if he wanted to be part of a Turtles film. The team held a meeting with Ice Cube, who, when told his character's name was Superfly, laughed and agreed to sign on. Ice Cube also chose to sign on because of his and his son's emotional connection with the Turtles franchise.