Turtles, Frosty, Spidey: Weekly Round Up

6th July 2020

Okay, so this might come as something of a surprise to anyone who know me or reads this round-up on the regular, but I’m actually quite a big fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. I know the 90s live action movies are dumb as all hell, but I have big nostalgia glasses for them, and so I still love them even now as an adult. Furthermore, I’m a fan of the 80s cartoon – which is where I really remember first coming across these awesome dudes – and I’m not ashamed to admit that I even have a bit of a soft-spot for the 2007 animated movie as well.

The newer live action movies are awful, though. But my favorite iteration of these shellraisers is actually the Nickelodeon animated series that came about in 2012. It’s as silly as it is fun, has some great overarching plot stuff, and the animation is somehow cheap and yet totally in keeping with the style of the show and the characters. I really enjoy it, and the fact that my kids like it too just means that I love it even more.

So, this week’s news that a new reboot of the characters is coming has me very excited. The film will reportedly be an animated adventure which, honestly, bodes well since I’m not sure the Turtles have ever worked all that well in live-action (even if I do have my aforementioned nostalgia glasses for the 90s outings).

Perhaps more interestingly, though, is that the film is being developed by Point Grey Pictures, Seth Rogen’s production outfit, and will be directed by Gravity Falls writer Jeff Rowe. Gravity Falls is, so I’m told, actually quite good, so this is could be a good sign. Rowe will be working from a screenplay by Brendan O-Brien, who was a co-writer on the films Neighbors and Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, which… meh, they’re fine. So, this is fine.

There’s no news yet on whether or not Rogen himself will be taking a role in the movie, it is going to be animated after all so he could very well pop up as almost anybody, but honestly I’m down for this one. It sounds interesting.

And while we’re on the topic of animated movies that should have been awful but are actually absolutely brilliant, we’ve got some interesting news about the much-anticipated sequel to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

If you’re anything like me then the original took you by surprise. The film went on to bag the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, beating out Disney in the process (good on you, Sony). This win was no doubt partly down to the unique animation style used on the film. Well, this week we heard from producer Chris Miller, who took to twitter to tease that “the development of new groundbreaking art techniques being done for the next Spider-Verse movie are already blowing me away”.

Assuming your appetite wasn’t already whetted by the first movie, and that statement alone wasn’t enough to get you excited, then Miller went on to confirm that he thinks the sequel film will “make the first movie look quaint”.

While we’re still going to have to wait a while to see just what it is about the animation techniques being used that has Miller so excited (the film isn’t scheduled to come out until 2022, and that isn’t set in stone with COVID-19 continuing to push movies back further and further), it’s certainly a rather tantalizing prospect.

We’re keeping it animated here this week as well (don’t ask me why, all the most interesting stories just seem to revolve around animation) with our next piece of movie news.

While this is technically a live action/animation hybrid, Warner Bros have just signed Aquaman himself, Jason Momoa, on to voice the titular character in their newly announced Frosty the Snowman reboot.

That might sound like a strange choice for character, and I would be inclined to agree with you, but it’s the oddness of that casting decision that made me prick my ears up and start to pay attention to a project that, honestly, would have otherwise been so far from my interests that I wouldn’t have even bothered to mention in.

Momoa is also producing the film alongside DC Comics’ Geoff Johns, although there is very little else known about the film at this point. Before that, of course, we’ll be seeing Momoa in Denis Villeneuve’s reboot of Frank Herbert’s Dune. So, from sea to sand to snow, what could Momoa’s next project be to keep up the trend?

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