Seth Rogen is bringing the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” franchise back to life in the upcoming animated movie “Mutant Mayhem,” which he has a story credit on and produced through his Point Grey Pictures company. During an interview with Polygon ahead of the film’s release, Rogen was ask what has kept him “turned off” from joining other movie franchises like the Marvel and DC superhero films.
“Honestly, probably fear,” Rogen said. “We really have a pretty specific way we work; me and Evan [Goldberg] have been writers for 20 years at this point. It’s a fear of the process, honestly. And I say that knowing nothing about the process. There are a lot of Marvel things I love.”
“It’s mostly a fear of how would we plug into the system they have in place, which seems like a very good system, and a system that serves them very well,” Rogen continued. “But is it a system that we would ultimately get really frustrated with? And what’s nice about [‘Mutant Mayhem’] is that we’re the producers of this. So we dictated the system, and we dictated the process in a lot of ways. We are creating the infrastructure and process for them, not plugging into someone else’s infrastructure and process. We’re control freaks!”
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Rogen already has success in the comic book space as a producer on Prime Video’s hugely popular series “The Boys,” which is based on the comic series of the same name. With “Mutant Mayhem,” he’s planning to launch a new franchise that will include a sequel film as well as a television series set to stream on Paramount+.
Earlier this year, Rogen told Total Film magazine that “The Boys” would “not exist or be interesting” without the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but that doesn’t mean he watches Marvel movies. The actor said that as an adult with no children, he finds it hard to get into the MCU, as it’s a bit too “geared toward” children for his personal taste.
“I think that Kevin Feige is a brilliant guy, and I think a lot of the filmmakers he’s hired to make these movies are great filmmakers,” Rogen said. “But as someone who doesn’t have children… It is [all] kind of geared toward kids, you know? There are times where I will forget. I’ll watch one of these things, as an adult with no kids, and be like, ‘Oh, this is just not for me.’”
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” opens in theaters Aug. 2 from Paramount.
