(Updated 07/27/2023)
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are coming back to the big screen. MUTANT MAYHEM is the new animated TMNT feature, starring an impressive who's-who of voice acting talent. The movie is written and produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, the team who brought us movies such as THIS IS THE END.
There have been many big-screen TMNT movies, the most recent ones being live-action efforts produced by Michael Bay, released in 2014 and 2016. While all of the live-action movies have dedicated fans, especially the first couple of movies produced in the 1990s, the best medium for the Turtles is animation. The last big-screen animated feature was released in 2007. It's time for something new, and MUTANT MAYHEM more than fits the bill.
Here's everything you need to know about TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM, including the new trailer.
When Does TMNT Mutant Mayhem Come Out?
Paramount will release TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM exclusively in movie theatres on August 2.
Watch the Final Trailer for TMNT Mutant Mayhem
The first MUTANT MAYHEM trailer was terrific but this one is even better. First, it's great to see the Turtles acting and sounding like actual kids. (More on that in a moment.) This isn't quite an origin story but it does start with the Turtles at a pretty early point in their ever-evolving relationship with the city around them — and with its human residents.
This trailer really shows off the sprawling cast. And then there's the look of the movie, which is simply spectacular.
A Vibrant Animation Style
It seems like SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE unlocked the option to push feature animation in new directions. One project which certainly reflects a new sense of freedom is MUTANT MAYHEM. The trailers show off a fluid, jumpy style of animation that captures teen years very well. Presumably, it also captures the feeling of being a teenage mutant ninja turtle really well, but that's pretty far outside our zone of experience, so we'll just have to accept it.
The company behind the movie's animation is Mikros Animation, with offices in Montreal and Paris.
Casting Actual Teens as the Turtles
One of the most notable aspects of MUTANT MAYHEM is that, for the first time in any TMNT production, the main characters are voiced by actual teen actors. Nicolas Cantu voices Leonardo, Micah Abbey is Donatello, Shamon Brown Jr. voices Michelangelo, and Brady Noon provides the voice of Raphael.
Back in 2020 when the movie was just starting to come together, Seth Rogen said,
"As a lifelong fan of Ninja Turtles, weirdly the 'Teenage' part of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was always the part that stuck out to me the most. And as someone who loves teenage movies, and who’s made a lot of teenage movies, and who literally got their start in their entire profession by writing a teenage movie, the idea of kind of honing in on that element was really exciting to us."
The Rest of the TMNT Cast Is Incredible
In addition to those four actors, there's a deep roster of additional talent. Jackie Chan voices Splinter, the mentor to the Turtles. Ayo Edebiri voices April O'Neil, who befriends the quartet. Seth Rogen and John Cena voice baddies Bebop and Rocksteady, with Hannibal Buress as Genghis Frog and Rose Byrne as Leatherhead.
Additionally, there's Ice Cube as Superfly, Post Malone as Ray Fillet, Paul Rudd as Mondo Gecko, Maya Rudolph as Cynthia Utrom, and Natasia Demetriou as Wingnut. Giancarlo Esposito voices Baxter Stockman, the inventor and sometimes criminal whose robotic Mousers prove to be a huge problem for the Turtles.
At this point we don't know if Shredder is in the movie, so we're going to guess that Baxter Stockman is the main villain of MUTANT MAYHEM.
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM is playing now!.
All images courtesy of Paramount Pictures.