Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem San Diego Comic-Con Panel Announced

Paramount Pictures and Comic Con International: San Diego today revealed that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is set to take over Hall H on Thursday, July 20 at 11:30 a.m. There are few details so far — the Comic Con website says only that “Paramount Pictures brings a panel discussion and footage presentation with filmmakers” — but if you plan to attend the show, you can sign into the SDCC website and add it to your schedule. The highly-stylized take on the Ninja Turtles represents the fourth swing at a theatrical franchise and the seventh installment to be released in movie theaters.

Inspired by movies like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, a new generation of ambitious animated movies like Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem have started to seep into the blockbuster space, giving a cool, tactile update to properties that had previously been fairly by-the-numbers in terms of their style, even when the scripts themselves were strong. 

“We wanted it to be like Stand By Me and Lady Bird. But, you know, with Ninja Turtles,” director Jeff Rowe described. “They’ve got a lot of that inauthentic confidence that teenagers have: when you’re a teen, you don’t know any better, so you operate with this hyped-up sense of, ‘We can do anything!’ That’s something that [they] are great at – that Superbad thing where they’re best friends, but they’re kinda losers who make fun of each other, but you never doubt for a second that they truly love each other.”

According to the film’s official synopsis, “In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, after years of being sheltered from the human world, the Turtle brothers set out to win the hearts of New Yorkers and be accepted as normal teenagers through heroic acts. Their new friend April O’Neil helps them take on a mysterious crime syndicate, but they soon get in over their heads when an army of mutants is unleashed upon them.” 

Teenage Mutans Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem stars Micah Abbey as Donatello, Shamon Brown Jr. as Michelangelo, Nicolas Cantu as Leonardo, and Brady Noon Raphael. The cast also includes Hannibal Buress as Genghis Frog, Rose Byrne as Leatherhead, John Cena as Rocksteady, Jackie Chan as Splinter, Ice Cube as Superfly, Natasia Demetriou as Wingnut, Ayo Edebiri as April O’Neil, Giancarlo Esposito as Baxter Stockman, Post Malone as Ray Fillet, Seth Rogen as Bebop, Paul Rudd as Mondo Gecko, and Maya Rudolph as Cynthia Utrom.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayem opens in theaters on August 4th.