Nickelodeon Nabs 'Ninja Turtles'

News broke this morning that would see the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles moving over to Nickelodeon. The move means that the Ninja Turles would get a new CGI animated series on the kids television network, while Paramount will head the next feature length film hitting theaters. To read the full report, scroll down...

Mirage Group and 4Kids Entertainment previously owned rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Viacom purchased the property rights for $60 million dollars. Viacom and Paramount intend to continue working on a feature length film that already has Scott Mednick attached to produce. The plan reamins (for now) to release the next film in 2012 along with a new CGI animated series debuting on Nickelodeon.

Nickelodeon and Viacom now control all merchandise rights along with film and television rights. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has been around since the early 80's and spawned a few different lines of toys, movies and tv series. Playmate Toys will continue to be the primary maker of the figures for Nickelodeon.

Back in April Scott Mednick confirmed that Mirage was planning a darker live-action version for the next installment of the Ninja Turles. One can only hope that with Viacom purchasing the rights and Scott Mednick still on board as producer that the next film will stay live-action. I did enjoy the last CGI film, but in this current climate with CGI films releasing by the buckets, I would much rather the focus move back to live-action. Stay tuned as Ninja Turtles news develops...

Source: Variety

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