Paramount Reportedly Wants to ‘Sonic-Fy’ the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Franchise, R-Rated The Last Ronin Film Ditched in Favor of New Live-Action Reboot Movie

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are reportedly in for some shell shock of their own, with Paramount planning a live-action movie reboot series inspired by the Sonic film franchise.

Sources told The Hollywood Reporter that Paramount has ditched the R-rated The Last Ronin, a live-action / animation hybrid (although it could return to it one day), and will now instead focus on a live-action movie. The sequel to Mutant Mayhem is still due out September 17, 2027.

First released back in 2020, The Last Ronin features a dystopian world in which all but one of the Turtles have perished, drawing inspiration from God of War among other works. It written by original creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, who said it was based on an outline from a story in 1987.

The Last Ronin was a big success for the Turtles, earning the story a sequel featuring a new generation of turtles. A Last Ronin video game is also in development, although we haven’t had an update on it for some time.

The last live-action or live-action / animation hybrid Turtles movie was 2016’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, which flopped at the box office. Successful animated Turtles movies, including 2023’s Mutant Mayhem, followed.

Paramount has reportedly drafted in Neal H. Moritz, the producer of The Fast and the Furious and Sonic movie franchises, to lead this new Turtles charge in a bid to “fully unlock its potential,” THR said.

Given the success of the Sonic films, you can see why Paramount would want to get the producer responsible to repeat the trick with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In January, Paramount hailed the success of the Sonic movie franchise after Sonic the Hedgehog 3 helped it pass $1 billion at the global box office. 2024’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which stars Keanu Reeves as Shadow, made nearly half a billion dollars during its theatrical run.

It feels like early days for this new era of Turtles films, and there’s no indication when the first movie will come out.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.