Mutant Mayhem Director Compares Movie to Stand By Me


The upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is set to harken back to classic adventure films like Stand By Me, according to the film’s director.

What movies are Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem inspired by?

Speaking to Empire Magazine, director Jeff Rowe mentioned that they looked at a few films as inspiration, including Stand By Me and Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, with Rowe saying that they wanted to be like those movies, “but with ninja turtles.”

“We wanted it to be like Stand By Me and Lady Bird. But, you know, with Ninja Turtles,” said Rowe of the new TMNT movie. He then noted that his aim was to create “the ultimate teenage coming-of-age film…They’ve got a lot of that inauthentic confidence that teenagers have: when you’re a teen, you don’t know any better, so you operate with this hyped-up sense of, ‘We can do anything!’”

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is produced by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and James Weaver. Executive Producers are Ramsay McBean and Josh Fagen.

“After years of being sheltered from the human world, the Turtle brothers set out to win the hearts of New Yorkers and be accepted as normal teenagers through heroic acts,” reads the official synopsis for the film. “Their new friend April O’Neil helps them take on a notorious crime syndicate, but they soon get in over their heads when an army of mutants is unleashed upon them.”