Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lands sequel after box office success
Michael Bay is returning to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film franchise to produce a sequel for the new action movie after it debuted atop the North American box office on Sunday (10Aug14).
The summer (14) crime-fighting blockbuster opened with an impressive $65 million haul and shortly after the news broke, executives at Paramount Pictures, the studio behind the project, announced that a follow-up is in the works.
Filmmaker Bay will again serve as producer, while screenwriters
Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec will return to pen the script for
the movie, which is scheduled for release in June, 2016.
A statement issued by Adam Goodman, President of Paramount's Film
Group, reads: "Launching a new take on the Turtles into the feature
film world was a daunting task because as fans of them ourselves,
we felt a great responsibility to ensure audiences were going to
experience everything they loved about the Turtles, while also
getting to see them brought to life in a way they had never been
seen before.
"The result exceeded our high expectations and the response to the
film is beyond great, making it all the more fun to get started on
the continuation of their story."
It is not yet known if director Jonathan Liebsman will also board
the sequel to the movie reboot.
The original live action film opened in 1990 with more than $25
million, eventually becoming the ninth highest-grossing film of the
year with over $200 million in worldwide takings.
It spawned two sequels, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret
of the Ooze in 1991 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III in
1993.