Fans of the rebooted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles universe will be disappointed to hear the news that a third film in the series is unlikely to happen anytime soon. In a recent interview with Collider, producer Andrew Form said “I don’t think there’s Turtles 3, but I wouldn’t say there’s never going to be another Turtles movie.”
This year’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows grossed 245 million worldwide on a 135 million dollar budget, which means that once marketing costs get added to the total budget the film ended up losing a fair chunk of money at the box office. This stands in contrast to the first film’s 493 million worldwide gross on a 125 million dollar budget, which gave the studio a solid win in 2014.
While the second film generally saw better reviews than its predecessor, audiences didn’t give it a fair chance to soar. It is possible the 2014 flick left a bad taste in some viewers mouth’s, so they didn’t want to give the sequel a try. It is also possible that the film drowned in an otherwise packed comic book movie line-up this year, which saw Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Captain America: Civil War, and X-Men: Apocalypse all opening before its domestic bow in June.
When asked his thoughts about the failings of the film, Form said “We’re still so proud of the movie; it just didn’t find an audience.” It seems he’s learned from his mistakes with this film though, adding ” I think one thing we did learn is you really need to give—you can’t just add characters to a movie and expect that to be what’s fresh.”
With a packed slate of upcoming releases like The Purge 4, a Jack Ryan TV show, and a Friday the 13th reboot, hopefully this means that Form has learned a thing or two about bringing successful projects to the big screen.
