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Paramount Shuts Down 'Ninja Turtles' Reboot; Release Date Pushed (Exclusive)

UPDATED: The film was set for a December 2013 release. A source close the production says the movie will come out in May 2014.

Paramount Pictures has shut down a planned reboot of the Ninja Turtles franchise, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter. The effects-heavy film, which was in preproduction in Vancouver, was set for release in December 2013. That date is being pushed to May 2014, according to sources.

The issue is said to be the script. Paramount has delayed several big movies from this year to 2013, including G.I. Joe: Retaliation and Brad Pitt’s World War Z, leaving it with a spotty pipeline for the current year. Now it has halted work on its planned holiday movie for 2013, temporarily laying off preproduction staff and informing those prepping the film that the work stoppage is "indefinite," according to sources. Another source close to the production says the movie has been pushed by ten weeks.

A Paramount rep would not immediately comment.

Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes is producing and Jonathan Liebesman (Wrath of the Titans) is set to direct from a script by Kevin Eastman and Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec. Other key players include Bourne franchise line producer Denis Stewart and second-unit director Dan Bradley (Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol).

The move comes as analysts have been knocking Viacom's Nickelodeon division for lower ratings. The Ninja Turtles project, a joint Paramount-Nickelodeon production, was eyed as a chance to bolster Nickelodeon as well as reboot a family film franchise. The studio had paid a hefty sum for rights to the property, which had been the basis for three hit movies for New Line Cinema in the 1990s.

In May, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman touted the Ninja Turtles reboot in a call with investors. "Our pipeline is extremely strong," he said. "We're developing more new [episodes] of our popular series and more exciting new series. And of course, we're particularly excited about the revival of the [Teenage Mutant Ninja] Turtles franchise."

Kevin Eastman escribió:As soon as ['TMNT' co-creator Peter Laird] and I had freedom, we took [the Turtles] into outer space and introduced the TCRI aliens [a.k.a. the Ultroms] and then we took you to the origin of the ooze, so they [the Turtles] have alien origins, they are from outer space… ['Ninja Turtles'] has to be well-grounded in Turtle history and lore, we don’t wanna take that away from the fans.

Kevin Eastman escribió:['Ninja Turtles' director Jonathan Liebesman] is a huge fan of Andy Serkis in ['Rise of the Planet of the Apes']… we’re deciding whether it’s suits with CG enhancements or full CG.

I talked to [producer] Scott Mednick yesterday, and he's seen the most recent 50 [script] pages and said it's as good as the last version -- they've really knocked it out of the park. I've seen a chunk of it, and it's going to be a great movie, despite what everybody thinks. Essentially they pushed it back for two reasons: One is the director, Jonathan Liebesman, wanted to make sure he could do the effects to the level he wants them at, and the fight scenes to the way they should be. Also, their release date is almost exactly on the 30th [TMNT] anniversary. May 5, 1984 is when the first Turtles comic came out. May 16, 2014, is almost exactly 30 years after. So basically it's an anniversary movie now.

‘Hunger Games 2′s Alan Ritchson To Play Raphael In ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’

EXCLUSIVE: Now that Paramount and Platinum Dunes has set Megan Fox as the female lead in the Jonathan Liebesman-directed live-action/CGI feature Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, they are working on the turtles. First to be cast: Alan Ritchson, who’ll play Raphael. He’ll be coming off playing Gloss, the deadly dagger-wielding male tribute from District One in the upcoming The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Now, the original movie series put its actors in bulky turtle suits, but this one will be more like the performance capture in Avatar, making this a good role. The TMNT reboot is dated for a June 6, 2014 release after it was pushed back to cut the budget to around $125M. Ritchson is repped by UTA and manager Michael Yanni.

Megan Fox to Star in 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' Reboot
Michael Bay is producing the movie based on the 1980s comic book.

Megan Fox has buried the hatchet with Michael Bay and will now star as the female lead in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the live-action CG hybrid movie Bay is producing for Paramount.

Fox will play April O’Neil, the human friend of the Ninja Turtles.

Bay let the cat out of the bag on his site with the simple phrase: TMNT: we are bringing Megan Fox back into the family!

Sources say Fox and Bay reconciled over a series of recent meetings and that one tete-a-tete that won her over was with director Jonathan Liebesman, who wowed her with the storyboards, according to insiders. (Bay is not directing the movie but producing it via his Platinum Dunes partners Brad Fuller and Andrew Form.)

The movie is in the casting stage and last week was testing actors, mostly relative unknowns, for the roles of the Ninjas – Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael – which will be motion-captured.

Fox, repped by ICM, starred in Bay’s first two Transformers movies before on-set friction and public comments led to her being written out of 2011's Transformers: Dark of the Moon.