Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin R-Rated Live-Action Movie in Development

04/11/2024 01:39 pm EDT

Shellshocker: A live-action, R-rated adaptation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin is in the works at Paramount. Walter Hamada, the former president of DC Films at Warner Bros. who inked an overall deal with Paramount Pictures to oversee the studio's horror line, is developing the project via his 18hz Productions banner. Based on the acclaimed IDW graphic novel from TMNT co-creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, The Last Ronin is set in a future post-apocalyptic New York City, where a lone surviving Turtle embarks on a bloody mission to avenge his fallen brothers. The Hollywood Reporter first reported the news.

Returning to the grittier tone that defined Eastman and Laird's original comic book run for Mirage Studios, TMNT: The Last Ronin is being conceived as an R-rated movie akin to Logan. Tyler Burton Smith, who penned the 2019 Chucky remake and the ultra-violent, R-rated action movie Boy Kills World, is writing the script.

Hamada is no stranger to adult-oriented comic book adaptations. As an executive producer, his credits include Matt Reeves' dark and moody neo-noir The Batman and the R-rated Joker for DC, as well as the horror hit Conjuring Universe franchise he oversaw as a production executive at New Line Cinema.

A New York Times best seller, The Last Ronin was conceived as "the final story" of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Co-written by Tom Waltz (IDW's TMNT) with pencils and inks by artists Esau & Isaac Escorza (Heavy Metal) and Ben Bishop (The Far Side of the Moon), the climactic Turtle tale pit the lone warrior against the grandson of Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Donatello's old archnemesis: the Shredder. The mini-series launched the "Ronin-Verse" and a prequel, titled Last Ronin — The Lost Years, which spanned the devastating series of events leading up to the Last Ronin's final battle.

In the series, the Last Ronin's identity is initially kept secret as he wields the weapons of all four Turtles — Leo's katana, Raph's sai, Donny's bō staff, and Mikey's nunchucks — and is haunted by hallucinations of his dead brothers. The dramatic first issue sees the Ronin attempt seppuku before continuing his vengeful crusade against the last Oroku.

The Last Ronin marks the first-live action Ninja Turtles movie since 2016's Michael Bay-produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. The heroes in a half-shell starred in a trilogy of live-action films in the 1990s and returned to the big screen in last summer's animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, which spawned an animated spinoff series for Paramount+ and a sequel dated for theatrical release on Oct. 9, 2026.

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