Jonathan Liebesman Comments on ‘Turtles’ Concerns

If you're still feeling the sting of Michael Bay's comments that the featured foursome of the upcoming live-action reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will be of an "alien race," you might want to hear what the film's director, Jonathan Liebesman, has to say.

In doing press rounds for his new film — next weekend's Wrath of the Titans — Liebesman addressed fans' concerns about the alien origin and arguably schooled them/us. Here's what Collider learned:


“Look, it’s so funny—if everyone was such a die-hard fan, they would know that the TCRI canisters where the ooze comes from.  That is alien ooze.  Now I’m not saying what Michael said is exactly what the movie is, because we’re sitting in a room now figuring everything out.  So we don’t know, but we are like Michael said: we’re expanding it, and the expansion will be true to the mythology.  I promise you: fans will love it.”

Liebesman also spoke about the collaborative process so far with "Turtles" creator Kevin Eastman.

“Whatever mythology we’re building on or expanding is coming from that guy, Kevin Eastman’s head, who created the Turtles in the first place.  And so everything will tie in with the mythology; fans will be extremely excited with what we’re coming up with.  A lot of it is stuff he’s wanted to do for a long time, but just hasn’t had the opportunity because now we have the budget and things on this film to expand it in the right way.  And so, I’m happy that everyone is extremely passionate, and they will not be disappointed.  It’s all coming from the best possible place for this franchise.”


The bottom line is the Turtles concept is very much still in the planning stages, so Bay should've kept his mouth shut and said something about working with the original creators.

On a note that will surely have folks a bit more optimistic about the reboot, when asked how the Turltes would be brought to life practically or with CGI, possibly something compared to Rise of the Planet of the Apes (i.e. motion capture), Liebesman said:

"All I'll say is that I love how they did (Rise of the Planet of the Apes). That was exceptional."