Huh? Didn't it make tons of cash? Seems odd they'd do that. EDIT: Ok, so I didn't realize it made such low earnings at the Box Office. Hmmm, this now sounds more plausible.
Really not that shocking considering how much Paramount poured into promoting the movie only to get such disappointing numbers both domestically and internationally. A third movie would just be throwing money away. I don't know if it's really that shocking though when you look at the track record of other films. You can get good numbers on a first film by cashing in on pop culture names, but if you don't leave people really satisfied with that first movie they don't come back for more. There aren't many films that can just bounce back from people saying I wasn't totally happy with the last movie. I don't think it really helped that visually they were sending such mixed messages. Casey, Rocksteady, Bebop, Baxter, and Krang all looked like throw backs to an earlier era but the Turtles still had their creepy new look. It just didn't seem like a movie that knew what it wanted to be. On the bright side maybe this will bump Megan Fox out of big movies and onto the Syfy movie of the week material.
The films were okay IMO. Standard superhero fare which took elements from the TMNT story, and was reasonably faithful and enjoyable. The problem is they couldn't get together a good origin for the mutated animals, which really spoiled things. The first film took from Rise of the Planet of the Apes (animals used as lab subjects for a new medication, that grants them intelligence and humanoid capability) and The Amazing Spider-Man (lizard-like humanoids, fight on a tower), and also from the IDW TMNT comics (Turtles and Splinter raised in a lab, the reincarnations of Hamato Yoshi and his four dead sons). But they removed Hamato Yoshi, so it didn't feel right. The second film did a little better IMO with introducing Bebop and Rocksteady and Krang, and slightly embracing its cartoonish cowabunga crazy nature. And then they used a different mutagen origin: inside every human there's a dormant animal gene from an animal ancestor, and the Mutagen Ooze allows that gene to dominate the human and turn into its respective ancestor. Thus, Bebop and Rocksteady evolved from warthogs and rhinos and the Turtles could evolve into humans if the mutagen was altered. That logic makes no damn sense, even for 1980s Ninja Turtles which was over-the-top. Also, the Shredder was underused in both films. In the first film he was the stepfather some white businessman who wanted to use the mutagen to kill people and then make a cure to sell to people, becoming stupid rich (his own words). Actually, the white dude was supposed to be the Shredder but people complained so they brought in a Japanese actor. The second film kept him Japanese, but had him be Krang's errand boy and later slave, and didn't even give him good armor or a fight with the Turtles IMO. I have to admit, I don't know where the third film could have gone. Would it be Turtles in time (again), or Turtles in space? Anyway that's it for Michael Bay's TMNT. He should find a cartoon with a better backstory to adapt.
Aw, that sucks. After seeing Out of the Shadows I was really hoping we'd get a third one. As a Ninja Turtles fan I actually enjoyed these two films.
May not have done what they wanted it to domestically but it still made money, and it definitely made money world wide box office which is what they look at when determining these things. I have to say I am surprised as I thought Paramount was boasting it as a success especially the second one since it was more critically received from the fans. (TMNT will never be a critical success with movie critics because they only look at things as either it will win an Oscar or it won't. It one thing isn't an Oscar contender then forget it, at least that's how it is with most critics)
Disappointing. Sad to hear about this, as I enjoyed both films and I was looking forward to the third installment.
Good riddance. It's a shame that they had all of this potential to actually fix what was wrong with the first one and instead, they made it worse.
Should have made better Ninja Turtle movies. Maybe now they can explore a live action 'immature radioactive samurai slugs' movie
I don't think the movies are bad but clearly there were a lot of problems since the production of the first movie. From the controversial alien reveal to Megan Fox to a laundry list of other problems. Then they messed up Casey Jones in the second movie along with Shredder not doing anything and Krang's voice.
The first one I thought was pretty decent. Not great, but not terrible. The second one though, yeah, as you said, they messed up Casey Jones, Shredder was pointless, and Krang felt tacked on. The only things I did like was Megan Fox cosplaying like the original comic book April in the opening bit of the movie and the way Mikey introduced everyone to Casey.
If there's one thing about the movies that was done well I would say it's the turtles. Although I did like Bebop, Rocksteady and Baxter in the films as well.
