Credit: Paramount PicturesFemale Ninja Turtles in the upcoming TMNT reboot? Prepare to be Turtle-y shell-shocked. Again.
On Thursday, April 11, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fans were left shell-shocked when Paramount Pictures revealed that a brand-new live-action TMNT movie — with an R rating — is in the works, based on the popular IDW Publishing comic book series The Last Ronin (2020).
Per The Hollywood Reporter, the script for The Last Ronin movie will be penned by Tyler Burton Smith, whose credits include Child’s Play (2019) and the upcoming actioner Boy Kills World (2024), while former head of DC Films, Walter Hamada, is producing the film through his company 18hz Productions.
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The Last Ronin comic book series has proven hugely popular with TMNT fans and avid comic book readers in general since it first hit shelves in 2020. It became a best-seller with The New York Times and is now one issue into its third series titled Re-Evolution (2024).
In fact, it’s been such a huge success that a video game adaptation is in the works with Black Forest Games and THQ Nordic. Check out the official teaser:
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Written by TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman and Tom Waltz (based on an older story by Eastman and TMNT co-creator Peter Laird) under the IDW Publishing banner, The Last Ronin follows lone Ninja Turtle Michelangelo in a dystopian future as he sets out to avenge the deaths of his three brothers, Leonardo, Raphael, and Donatello, his father, Master Splinter, and friend Casey Jones.
However, the second series, Lost Day (2023), teases four completely new infant Mutant Turtles: Odyn, Yi, Moja, and Uno, two of whom are female, while the current series, Re-Evolution, focuses on them during their teenage years as they take center stage and officially replace the four legendary brothers.
Related: ‘TMNT: The Last Ronin’ Trailer Breakdown
Odyn, Yi, Moja, and Uno first appear as baby turtles in the last panel of the first series, which means that if the upcoming The Last Ronin movie is going to follow the graphic novel as closely as we’re all hoping, then it will feature these new characters either in the final scene, a mid-credits scene, or a post-credits scene, teasing a probable sequel.
While the announcement doesn’t mention anything beyond the one film, Nickelodeon and Paramount Pictures will most likely want to develop The Last Ronin into a franchise if the first installment is successful. Last year, the 3D animated reboot Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023) grossed $180.5M worldwide against a $70M budget and was a hit with audiences and critics. Now, there’s a theatrical sequel, a 2D animated sequel series, and a video game adaptation in development.
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The Last Ronin movie will be the ninth theatrical movie in the TMNT franchise, following Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993), TMNT (2007), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023), and the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem 2 (2026), which has been given an October 9, 2026 release date.
There’s no release date for The Last Ronin movie or The Last Ronin game.
Are you excited about the TMNT: The Last Ronin movie? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!