If there’s any late summer film that might be able to find a foothold at the box office amidst the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon, it’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,” a film that marks the beginning of a greater investment in theatrical animation for Paramount Pictures.
Made on a reported $70 million budget and with Seth Rogen attached as a writer-producer, “Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” marks the start of a new incarnation of the quartet of pizza-loving reptile warriors who have been reinvented in various films, comics and TV series since Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman first imagined them for a 1984 one-off comic spoofing Marvel heroes like Daredevil and the X-Men.