Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Defeats Guardians of the Galaxy at the Box Office, Wins Itself a Sequel
Pictured: My reaction to TMNT getting a sequel.
If you haven’t seen the Michael Bay-produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, know that it’s a surprisingly decent summer blockbus—hahahaha, no. It is legitimately one of the worst three movies I’ve seen in my entire life, and now it’s getting a sequel, so Bay can put his slimy Bay hands all over Casey Jones and ruin that character, too. Life is pain.
TMNT made $65 million-plus over its opening weekend, which was enough for Paramount to greenlight a sequel—currently scheduled for June 3, 2016—post-haste. Bay is back as the producer, as are writers Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec, and holy crap, this movie had writers? Master Splinter learned how to ninja by ! Maybe put down the sauce this time around, guys. There’s no word yet on whether director Jonathan Liebsman will be returning as well.
The other big turtle news circulating around the Interwebz is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle dethroning Guardians of the Galaxy, which made a *sarcasm* paltry */sarcasm* $41.5 million on its second weekend. I’m here to tell you not to be too mad about that one. It’s hardly Grown Ups 2 beating Pacific Rim on what was both of their first weekends (still not over it), after all. Guardians‘ opening weekend gross was nearly $30 million over what Turtles got. Also relevant: There were a ton of movies out this summer, and only three of them–Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Transformers: Age of Extinction, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes—were able to hold onto their number one spot for consecutive weekends, in all cases because they had the luck to be followed by some fairly lackluster films. (Rio 2 and The Purge: Anarchy, anyone?)
I’d have loved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to do a Transcendence-style fizzle and pop, but because it’s a genuinely awful film, not so Guardians could “beat” it. This is not Turtles vs Guardians or Bay vs. Marvel. It’s so much bigger than that. We’re talking the drek of the Earth vs humanity itself.
(via The Hollywood Reporter)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Falls Short for Fans
- The Mary Sue Exclusive: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Director and Producers Talk About the Power of April O’Neil
- So the Australian TMNT Poster Is Officially a PR Nightmare
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