“Hobo with a Shotgun” director Jason Eisener has revealed that five years ago he made a pitch to Paramount Pictures for a dark, adult violent “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” spin-off feature focusing on the hockey mask-wearing Casey Jones character.
Eisener shared the pitch which was for a standalone film with Shredder’s daughter Karai as the villain. The final act sees Casey teaming up with Raphael who would look like the version of the red-bandana wearing, twin sai-carrying turtle from the 1990 live-action film.
Eisner also shared a tone reel he posted to Vimeo five years ago. The posting has drawn some reaction, including from actor Joe Manganiello who says: “About ten years ago, Paramount wanted to make something with me and I said I wanted to play Casey Jones… I would have done this in a heartbeat.”
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” first landed on television screens in 1987 and became the go to cartoon for a whole generation as it ran for ten seasons. It yielded various successful games and a trilogy of movies in the early 1990s.
Twenty years later Paramount revived the property on the big screen with two live-action films in the mid 2010s, whilst the small screen has had several Nickelodeon animated shows.
The ‘Turtles’ have had a bit of a comeback lately with the successful game launches of the acclaimed “TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge” last year along with the “Cowabunga Collection,” whilst later this Summer sees the release of the Seth Rogen-produced animated film “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” in August.
Much of the original show’s target audience though is now well into their forties and so a violent, more mature-themed “Logan” style film involving the Casey Jones character, a vigilante suffering deep psychological trauma who wears a hockey mask and uses a variety of sporting equipment as his weapons of choice, could work.
Source: Twitter
