As news continues to flow from the aftermath of San Diego Comic-Con 2019, we’ve come across another potentially exciting piece of news for fans of the worlds most famous, “Turtle Ninjas..” You heard that right, Ninja Turtles Co-Creator Kevin Eastman recently spoke to Comicbook.com about the upcoming 35th anniversary of the original Ninja Turtles comic. Eastman also shed some much needed light on the possibility of the famous foursome returning to the big screen:
“Its really been so fascinating as we watch so many things on the entertainment side of our industry change so much in particular, you know, and I think of, how I enjoyed Daredevil, the Netflix TV series with Charlie Cox and because Daredevil was a huge influence obviously on the Turtles universe, and for me that was my favorite comic growing up. I feel like The Turtles have evolved to this point after 35 years almost, and this sounds weird, but its almost to where they started out where we had the original black and white comic book come out intended for our older audience, and then we developed a cartoon show specifically for a younger audience, and now I feel like we’ve gone back to that place where we have the original fans that are like 30 years old.”

The Ninja Turtles originally debuted as a dark comic that was later transitioned into a more marketable item. Having the Turtles be teenagers, with one liners, that devour all the pizza one can handle. But in todays market, darker and grittier shows are becoming the way to go for comic book adaptations. Eastman went on to explain that having an “Adult-Themed” Turtles Netflix show would be something of interest and a potential progression for the green heroes:
“…I feel like that’s the direction I think we can go and there’ll be enough of an audience to support
both. Because we do see a lot of that fans asking when can we get that edgy, you know, Netflix Daredevilish sort of intensity of the Turtles – at the same time, you can balance that with such a wonderful cartoon series like, Rise of the Turtles, the new series, back to that spot where we’re sacred to a much younger audience. So I think that’s hopefully in the future I’d love to see that, really.”
Live-Action Ninja Turtles burst on the scene in 1990 with a box-office gross of $202mill USD. The most recent incarnation hit theaters in 2016, bringing home $245.6mill on a $135mill budget. The turtles hope to get back on track with some sort of a reboot. Only time will tell which official direction the Ninjas go.