In late July, Playmate Toys dropped a blurb on its official site saying that a new live-action version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was being made. When we and other sites attempted to report it, they quickly took down the notice. Everyone had a good laugh and assumed it must have been a typo. After all, this is Ninja Turtles, maybe it has life as a computer animated franchise but the days of audiences being entertained by guys in rubber suits is long over… isn’t it?

Not so much. It looks like the blurb on the Playmate site wasn’t a typo. Kevin Eastman, who wrote the computer animated TMNT movie in 2007, has left a post on the Heavy Metal forum in which he says the following: “Although the CGI film did well enough to warrent a sequel, there has been much talk between Imagi and Warners to do a better "re-invention" (newest Hollywood buzzword) of the TMNT's, in a live action film--like what was done with Batman. Back to basics, back to the origin and the intro of the Shredder, etc...there have been talks, trips to Northampton to talk to Mr Laird, and discussions with the original "first" TMNT film director Steve Barron to come back and do it right--but no official word yet...will keep you posted.”

Looks like the success of The Dark Knight has prompted Hollywood to engage in yet another reboot. Because of course, if it works for Batman it has to work for a movie about pizza eating turtles doesn’t it? Right? Funny how they conveniently ignore the fact that rebooting The Incredible Hulk actually resulted in a movie that made less money than the original, not more.

Could a live action TMNT work though? We joke about rubber suits, but just look at what they’ve done with Hellboy. That’s a guy wearing incredible looking prosthetics. Why not makeup of that caliber for the Ninja Turtles? Of course knowing Hollywood they’ll go the easy way, and just give us computer animated turtles shoved into a live action setting. After all, it has worked so well for Hulk… whoops.