The brand new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated movie from producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg will be released August 11, 2023. We know this because Rogen revealed it on his Twitter by posting a photo straight out of Leonardo’s notebook.
If those two sentences leave you with a look of confusion on your face, let’s jump back a bit. Last summer, news broke that Rogen and Goldberg’s company, Point Grey, was teaming up with Paramount and Nickelodeon to make an animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. Jeff Rowe (Gravity Falls, Disenchantment) is directing and Brendan O’Brian (Neighbors) wrote the script. At that point, the first thought for many was “Another Ninja Turtles movie? And animated at that?” That reaction made sense, as the franchise was very recently rebooted for the big screen and has seen its share of animated versions too.
But a few months later we realized what Rogen and Goldberg were bringing to the project: a focus more on the first word of that title, which many of the other iterations have ignored in favor of the other three. “When I look at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the ‘teenage’ part was weirdly what stuck out to me the most,” Rogen said last year. “I think one thing we’ve been pretty consistently good at over the years is creating material about teenagers, from Blockers, Good Boys, and Superbad. That was really what became exciting for us is how do we make a great action-adventure movie that’s also a great teenage movie.”
Which brings us back to that release date reveal, since Rogen tweeted the date as part of a doodle-filled page from Leonardo’s notebook. The image brought to mind the end credits of Rogen and Goldberg’s Superbad, which used the notebook doodle idea to show a bunch of penises. Leo didn’t doodle any dicks though. Just lots of thoughts about science, philosophy, group dynamics, to-do tasks, and more. Oh, and that release date. You can link the tweet here but the full image is below. It’s a treasure trove of content.
Rogen added “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles... Aug 11 2023 (Leo takes notes like I used to).” Leo seems pretty bored and confused at the moment—unsure of who he is, also unsure of what Donnie’s role in the group is, and forgetful about apologizing to April for something. Literally every piece of this image could be dissected, which we’re assuming is the point. The biggest standout to me though is that tear at the bottom. What’s missing here? Maybe we’ll find out in a few years.
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