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 "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," based on the 1980s comic book
series that led to a television show and then a film in 1990,
features four turtle brothers trained as fighters.
In the 2014 version out in U.S. theaters on Friday, the amiable
Turtles named after Renaissance artists are brought to life with
new performance capture technology.
The restless teen Turtles are fighting the criminal Foot Clan as
nighttime vigilantes, but as Foot Clan leader Shredder's evil
plans threaten to obliterate the population of New York, the
Turtles must leave the safety of their sewer lair to save the
city.
Viacom-owned Paramount Pictures acquired the rights to the
"Turtles" in 2009 and relaunched the "Turtles" TV series on
Nickelodeon in 2012, bringing in a new youth audience to the
characters. The film's budget is estimated at $125 million by
IMDB.com, and is projected by BoxOffice.com to earn $39 million
in its opening weekend.
Reimagining the Turtles was a job entrusted to George Lucas'
Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) team, which developed performance
capture software to make the superheroes as photo-realistic as
possible in the production led by Michael Bay and directed by
Jonathan Liebesman.
The four relatively unknown actors that played the Turtles -
Noel Fisher (Michelangelo), Pete Ploszek (Leonardo), Jeremy
Howard (Donatello) and Alan Ritchson (Raphael) - wore helmets
rigged with high-definition cameras capturing every facial
movement.
"You want to make sure you entertain the individuality of every
one of those characters," said Pablo Helman, the ILM visual
effects supervisor behind the film.
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"They're all completely different from each other, but they're
brothers and they all feel they don't belong in this world. That's
also why they're so big, it's a really good way to say they're too
big for the world in which they live in."
Megan Fox, best known as the love interest in Bay's "Transformers"
films, plays intrepid reporter April O'Neil who becomes a close ally
of the Turtles, and the object of Michelangelo's teen infatuation.
The actress called herself a "superfan" of the franchise and said
she enjoyed not being a damsel in distress.
"(April) never has to be rescued by a man in this movie, she's only
rescued by the Turtles," Fox said. "I didn't at any point have to be
sexualized in this movie, there's no weird, gratuitous shot, and I
think that's the first time I've ever had a part like that."
Fox is joined by Will Arnett, who plays Vern Fenwick, April's inept
cameraman who has a big crush on her. The actor said he believed the
Turtles brought a new superhero message for its audience.
"A lot of other superhero movies are about one singular guy, this
lone wolf," Arnett said. "This is about these guys together forming
one unit, and I think that's what separates it."
(Editing by Mary Milliken and David Gregorio)
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