Original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie writer wants to make a reboot/sequel

There have been plenty of sequels and reboots of older franchises lately, and now another iconic movie could be getting a new lease of life on the big screen.

As reported by Comic Book, Bobby Herbeck, the writer of the original Steve Barron-directed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie from 1990, and Kim Dawson, the producer, are keen to make a sequel with updated technology. When Herbeck and Dawson were asked if they were interested in a “20 years later” TMNT movie in the vein of Bill & Ted: Face the Music or Halloween, Herbeck said: “Yes. The answer is yes.”

He added: “We're trying to make that happen. We want to do a reboot. We got our fans come to us on Instagram, they're [saying], 'Why don't you guys do a reboot of the first movie?' We'd love to do it."

Dawson also weighed in. “The truth is, this property, it's established now after 30 years as a part of our modern pop culture, it's not going away," he said. "It's only going to continue to grow. I do wish that we could go back.

"We've talked to Steve Barron about this, and Brian Henson, and if there were an opportunity, if one of the studios saw fit, I think we could go back and reboot it like it was... Imagine if Brian Henson had access to the technology he does today to make these costumes and all that. I think it would be amazing. A reboot like that I think would really get people's juices flowing."

In the '90s movie, Jim Henson’s Creature Shop was behind the incredible turtle costumes – following Jim Henson’s death in 1990, his son Brian Henson took over the Creature Shop. It’s entirely possible that, with today’s advanced technology, a modern sequel would have Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo and Raphael looking even better than they did in 1990 (and not as terrifying as they did in Michael Bay’s 2014 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).

I'm the Deputy Entertainment Editor here at GamesRadar+, covering all things film and TV for the site's Total Film and SFX sections. I previously worked on the Disney magazines team at Immediate Media, and also wrote on the CBeebies, MEGA!, and Star Wars Galaxy titles after graduating with a BA in English.