Celebrating their 100th anniversary, Paramount has hit a bit of a rough patch. They recently pushed back G.I. Joe: Retaliation after disastrous test screening results forced reshoots and similar happenings are underway with their zombie film World War Z. Now another tentpole has been shut down in favor of some re-tooling.
THR reports that pre-production on the live-action reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has been halted, with layoffs of some staff for “indefinite” stoppage. Produced by Michael Bay and directed by Jonathan Liebesman (Battle: Los Angeles, Wrath of the Titans), development was underway in Vancouver, but now Paramount has moved the film from a December 2013 slot, all the way to about 23 months from now, on May 16th, 2014.
Coming from TMNT creator Kevin Eastman and writer of last year’s excellent blockbuster Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol Andre Nemec, the issues are actually said to lie with their script. With the delay, these next few months will give the filmmakers time to brush up the pages into something workable while the studio figures out how to trim the $125 million budget down by $10m to $20m. After Liebesman pumped out two mediocre blockbusters in a row, I’m not particularly looking forward to this one, but let’s hope the time is useful to improve this reboot.
Are you looking forward to a live-action TMNT reboot? Upset at the delay?