How A Case Of Marvel-Phobia Led Seth Rogen To Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been an unusual mainstay in popular culture for decades, so they might be seen as occupying an unusual subgenre unto themselves. Originally created in 1984, the Turtles were intended as a satire of the ultra-gritty superhero comics of the time, Frank Miller's "Daredevil" comics in particular. The absurd title and weird premise, however, caught on, and by 1990, the Turtles were starring in TV shows, video games, and a live-action feature film. In 2023, the Turtles are entering what might be their 20th unique continuity with the release of Jeff Rowe's "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem." They have come a long way since their superhero-inflected origins.
"Mutant Mayhem" was co-written and co-produced by Seth Rogen, who also plays the voice of Bebop, a mutant warthog. As a producer, Rogen has had a long, prolific, and quite interesting career. His movies tend to be lightweight slacker comedies but with a pointed religious bent. He analyzed the hypocrisies of Heaven in "This is the End," killed God in "Sausage Party," and analyzed modern Jewish identity in "An American Pickle." It may be tempting to interpret "Mutant Mayhem" as some sort of stoner-ready essay on the ethos of the modern adolescent.
Rogen is also no stranger to comic book movies, having starred in "The Green Hornet" in 2011 and having produced the hit series "The Boys."
Rogen recently spoke with Polygon and the interviewer, Susana Polo, asked Rogen, an outspoken pop culture nerd, why he hadn't yet tried to bring his storytelling style and producing acumen to a film based on, say, DC Comics or Marvel Comics. Rogen admitted openly that he's terrified of the larger companies' process.
The ballad of Seth and Evan
Rogen and his longtime writing and producing partner Evan Goldberg have been making movies together ever since Greg Mottola's "Superbad" in 2007. Naturally, when one works closely with a partner for that long, one develops an instinct and a rhythm. The massive Marvel machine, in contrast, demands that all auteurs who enter adhere to the dictated "house style," cleaving to a broader sense of continuity dictated by the studio's executives rather than any artists. Rogen doesn't pooh-pooh Marvel. Indeed, he loves a lot of the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He merely feels overwhelmed at the thought of entering the machine. Why not work with Marvel? He said:
"Honestly, probably fear. We really have a pretty specific way we work; me and Evan have been writers for 20 years at this point. It's a fear of the process, honestly. And I say that knowing nothing about the process. There are a lot of Marvel things I love. It's mostly a fear of how would we plug into the system they have in place, which seems like a very good system, and a system that serves them very well. But is it a system that we would ultimately get really frustrated with? And what's nice about ['Mutant Mayhem'] is that we're the producers of this."
Rogen and Goldberg, it seems, were allowed to start a pop mythology entirely from scratch, finding their own aesthetic (the animated film looks painterly and Cubist) and inventing their own versions of the characters. The Marvel machine would likely not permit that as they already have a canon 30-some films deep. Any filmmakers entering that milieu would need to be at peace with that. It sounds like Rogen would be too nervous to enter that territory.
'We dictated the system'
With a process that was entirely his and Goldberg's, Rogen was way more comfortable. Even when dealing with long pre-established entertainment franchises, Rogen has long been able to dictate his own terms and tell the kinds of stories he wants. His continued success in Hollywood has proven that he can be trusted to a certain degree, so he was granted free reign on the Ninja Turtles. The aesthetic he and Goldberg chose is gorgeous, and the cast consists of — get this! — actual teenagers. This was all based on Rogen's need to closely oversee everything. He said:
"[W]e dictated the system, and we dictated the process in a lot of ways. And that's what's also appealing for us about 'The Boys' and the other bigger franchise-y type things we've done, is that we are creating the infrastructure and process for them, not plugging into someone else's infrastructure and process. We're control freaks!"
/Film's own Rafael Motamayor gave "Mutant Mayhem" a positive review, praising its striking style, novel casting, and amazing soundtrack.
Rogen, meanwhile, is seemingly hopeful about "Mutant Mayhem," as he feels it represents an era of media left behind by newer generations. The idea of "browsing" in a store may be gone, but he feels that something eye-catching can have the same effect. He said:
"I grew up going to comic book shops, and it's funny, video stores are making a slight comeback in some ways. This idea of browsing and not having things fed to you — as I think people feel we are now when it comes to entertainment — but instead entering the fair market of entertainment and just wandering around and seeing what catches your eye."
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" arrives in theaters on August 2, 2023.