A creature design artist who worked on Michael Bay's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot from 2014 has broken his silence on the hurtful fan backlash over the updated characters.Jared Krichevsky, who redesigned the Heroes in a Half Shell for the TMNT reboot, responded to a Twitter post by Chucky actor Devon Sawa. The actor posted a side-by-side still frame of Leonardo as he was designed in the movie and a redesign that removed his human-like lips and nostrils to stay true to his cartoon appearance. For Krichevsky, it brought back a painful memory of toxic fans when the initial reboot trailer was released in 2014.
"Welp, time to relive this time in my life over again," Krichevsky said. "People, and for real, accused me of r*ping their childhoods because of the designs."
Fans Hated the TMNT Redesign
At the time of production, Bay and the visual effects team, which included Krichevsky, sought to give the Turtles a more realistic appearance while maintaining their personalities. The TMNT creature designer compared the fan backlash to the initial real-world design of Sonic the Hedgehog for his 2020 film adaptation. Unlike Sonic, which was delayed to redesign the character to be closer to his video game counterpart, the TMNT production team did not respond to fan criticism. Krichevsky believes things would be much different today. "Nowadays this would have been Sonic'd so fast it woulda blast me into an alternate dimension," Krichevsky said.
Directed by Jonathan Liebesman, 2014's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles retold the story of the turtles' first encounter with Channel 6 reporter April O'Neil (Megan Fox) and coming out of the shadows of the New York City sewers to stop Shredder and the Foot Clan from infecting the population with a mutagenic toxin. Despite overwhelmingly negative reviews, the reboot was a hit with audiences worldwide, grossing over $493 million. The sequel, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, was released in 2016 and featured the introductions of Casey Jones (Arrow's Stephen Amell), Krang (voiced by Brad Garrett), Bebop (Gary Anthony Williams) and Rocksteady (WWE's Sheamus). Unfortunately, the sequel made less than half of the original's box office take and received a 38% rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Producer Andrew Form confirmed there would not be a third TMNT installment in the Bay-produced reboot series. But in 2020, Seth Rogen announced a computer-animated reboot titled TMNT: Mutant Mayhem that he will produce and is set to be directed by The Mitchells vs. The Machines co-director Jeff Rowe. TMNT: Mutant Mayhem is scheduled to open in theaters on Aug. 4, 2023.
Source: Twitter