TMNT
TMNT for Adults Too
“We wanted to take care of our fan base first of all,” said producer Thom Gray. “Those were what we called the alums that were with us back in the 90’s. We wanted to make a movie that would satisfy them. Push it a little bit, but not get into the PG-13. I think we’re very much borderline right now. In fact, we’ve had to take a look at that on some of the action scenes. That core audience for us in that 7-11. The new generation that’s seen it on the television. Then of course most importantly to us are the fan base which is the 18-25 that were there years and years ago. Those are the two segments. Probably not a lot in between, but those segments are the ones we really aimed it at without trying to dumb it down to be too much cowbunga. I’ll hand it off to Kevin and it’s his inspiration, his vision. What this film would be like in today’s market.”
While the film is not yet rated, Kevin Munroe hopes families see it together. “It’s a family film,” said the director. “It’s funny because it has such a negative connotation. It’s sort of my first thing I had to get over when we started this. This idea that family is not a bad word and that family does not equal cutesy talking animals. It just means I can go with my dad and he’s going to enjoy it just as much as I am. Just for the movie itself, it’s just the quintessential movie. It’s just big and fun. I think the one thing we really wanted to avoid with the movie was sort of those inside jokes purposely played for adults. Those sort of double entendres and stuff like that. It works for those sort of rollicking comedies. For this I think you bond across the board with all of these different age demographics just through a level of fun and just through a level of adventure. The characters themselves are just more ageless.”
As much as Gray would like to up the ante, he is contractually obliged to make this one a PG. “Again, we’ve had some preliminary talks with the rating board,” said Gray. “It’s funny, you can go and see Narnia and it’s really violent. They have different standards for us than they do for Narnia or any other PG. They said you can’t really whap somebody with the nun-chucks. Throwing stars are definitely out. I remember they were making them in the UK and they were throwing them at football matches. They would launch these things and there was a huge thing. So we had to be very careful. The turtles are something that parents are going to trust that this is not going to be too far out there. We wanted to go far out there. If we had our way, we’d probably be making R or PG-13, but the forces that be in the market place tell you that you’ve got to push it a little bit because times are different, but you can’t cross that line into PG-13. We pulled back. It’s still going to be pretty out there.”
With Munroe closer to the original fans, he has to go back to the source, his eight and four-year-old kids. “I try not to do it too much because they become so jaded. I’ve done it before on other projects and before it actually gets to color and they’ve seen the movie and grayscale animation, they don’t even care by the time it’s finished. So I’m trying to figure out a way for them to see it on the big screen which is kind of cool. My four-year –old, in the teaser trailer when he falls in the dumpster is directly lifted from him. We’d be sitting in the kitchen and there’s this loud smash in the other room and there’s glass and you hear the cat screech and then there’s this two second pause and you hear ‘I’m okay.’ He runs off and that’s where that came from. It’s fun to bounce stuff off them.”
TMNT opens to theatres on March 23rd, 2007.
For posters, banners, movie stills, trailers and more movie info, go to the TMNT
Movie Page.
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