Watching trailers for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, one of the first things to come to mind is Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Spider-Verse was such a game changer in animation that when you see any animated movie after it that looks a little bit different, it’s very easy to link the two. Especially when Turtles is coming out the same summer as the sequel Across the Spider-Verse was released. You assume there’s a link.
Jeff Rowe understands that, and is honored by the comparison, but doesn’t exactly agree with it. The director of not just Mutant Mayhem, but also co-director of The Mitchells vs. The Machines, sees the link more as a sign that animation has taken a new turn in its history than anything else. In fact, Rowe didn’t even look at past Ninja Turtles movies for inspiration. Instead, he says it was Netflix’s The Toys That Made Us that really gave him the most excitement when gearing up for the project.
As a long-time Turtles fan, Rowe connected more to the toys themselves than the movies or even the original animated series. He talked about that, Spider-Verse and so much more speaking to io9 recently. Rowe revealed the film was completely different in earlier iterations (it had Shredder as the villain), how difficult it was to get the incredible voice cast, the complex Turtles canon, and so much more. Check out our full interview below.
Germain Lussier, io9: Now, I know you were a huge Turtles fan growing up, so I’m sure you didn’t have to do too much research when you got the job. But I’m curious specifically about the previous movies. There are so many and they’re all so different. Did you rewatch them and what at all did you learn about them in terms of what you wanted to do and what you didn’t want to do?
Jeff Rowe: I honestly did not. The thing that I watched that was most useful to me was that Netflix documentary [series] The Toys That Made Us. There is one specifically about the Ninja Turtles toys, and that was just like a conduit, portal, like straight back to my four-year-old self. It really reminded me of the franchise and the characters and especially how tactile it was for me—like how much of my connection to it specifically came from the toys, and the hours I spent imagining worlds and playing with them. And then when I got this job, I kind of deliberately did not want to cloud my take on it with too much of what had been done in the past. I encouraged that for the team too; a lot of people worked on the team who had never seen anything from Ninja Turtles, and they’d be like, “Oh, should we watch the movies?” And I would say, “No. Just come in and watch these other films instead and come into this with a fresh take.”
io9: Speaking of other films, this trailer has been playing in theaters, this summer especially, and people have seen [Mutant Mayhem] as almost like a disciple of the Spider-Verse movies. As if this movie might not exist if that didn’t happen. Would you say that’s accurate? And how often did that movie in that kind of style come up?
Rowe: I mean, people bring it up a lot. More than I would like, I think. But the original Spider-Verse, I think, is one of the great works of art of the 21st century. And I will take as many comparisons as people want to give me to that. But they’re doing a very different thing. They’re very slick and polished and about precision. And our look and our style is a lot more lo-fi in a good way. We’re like the grunge bands in the ‘90s. Just trying to do just a very different thing.
But yeah, I think it speaks to a thing that’s happening right now which is really exciting, where audiences don’t have the vocabulary yet because animation has been the same for 30 years and because it’s just been progressing on one track. Now that there’s like one different thing, and then two and three and four or five different things, the brain can only lump those together. I think hopefully in a couple of years time, people will be comparing things to Mutant Mayhem as much as they are to The Mitchells vs. the Machines or Puss in Boots. And these disciples of Spider-Verse will hopefully create their own lineages.
io9: Yeah. I agree. One of the many things I love about this movie is how it kind of balances this distinct ‘90s vibe for the original fans, but also tons of modern pop culture for teens and younger audiences. Was that part of the process early on or how did that kind of happen?
Rowe: That came from, we did a unique thing on the movie, which is just recording all the kids together. Like it’s an audio nightmare. Movies don’t do it. But we recorded all the kids together and the way they talk to each other, often the things that they would say in between takes and when they weren’t doing scenes was so funny and so natural and so engaging that we wanted the movie to feel more like that. And we would throw away the script and encourage them to talk about something. “Talk about a video you saw on YouTube.” Relate about that because that’s how they naturally related to each other. And then we’d be like, “What do you want?” And one of them would be like, “I want to hang out with Drake.” And it’s like, “Okay, great, let’s put that in the movie because that’s authentic to you.”
io9: But also you use a lot of ‘90s music. Like “No Diggity” is one of my favorite songs and I was freaked out during that scene. I can’t wait to see that again. But then 4 Non-Blondes, Tracy Chapman—talk about the music choices and how you brought those in?
Rowe: I was picking out a visual tone and style for the film very early on because we didn’t have a script yet. So I was just like making a mood board and I love the aesthetic of the late ‘80s, early ‘90s. The patterns, the colors. Spike Lee films. The music. New York hip-hop and underground club music of that era. It was a really exciting, optimistic time artistically. And the movie had to take place currently, but my love of the Turtles is tied to this love of the ‘90s, and it felt like a way to honor the history and maybe touch on some nostalgia without having them say “Cowabunga” every five minutes.
io9: Now I’m not going to get into spoilers, but I thought so much of this story, the villains and especially where the story ends up in terms of the Turtles, was so unique to this franchise. I remember thinking “Whoa, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this.” Am I right in assuming that, and how conscious of a decision was that to sort of make a story that uses the origin but goes into different places?
Rowe: It was pretty conscious. One of the things we did early on is we would have these discussions, and a lot of times we’d have to grapple with canon and then we’d be like, “Wait, what is the canon?” Splinter, in some versions, he’s a human who turned into a rat. And in other versions, he’s a rat who turned into a human because the ooze makes the last animal that you touch transfer... like we realized very early on that none of it makes sense because a lot of it was made up by toy companies or cartoons. Then we’re like, “Well, I think we have to do some grounding.” We want the film to be emotionally sharp and resonant and a lot of that comes from relatability. We need the audience to feel like they can see themselves in these turtles and feel like they’re on the same journey as them. And that can only happen if it feels like it takes place more or less in our world. That required a lot of just grounding to get it there. So yeah, very early on we’re like, “Well, we’re going to have to change some things from canon and some people might take exception to that, but hopefully they’ll see what we did and understand why we did it, and appreciate the end result.”
io9: Oh, absolutely. Like I said, I think it works great. So this movie is called Mutant Mayhem. So the villains here are all these mutants. It’s one of the first Turtle things not to have Shredder as the villain. How early on was the decision made to be like “Let’s not use Shredder at all in this?”
Rowe: It came late. The early version of the film [was] very different from what you’re seeing on screen. It’s like, they were just in high school the entire movie. Shredder was the villain. And then part of the process of making this—and that’s one of the amazing things about animation, is because you don’t have to do a live-action shoot on a compressed schedule, you have a lot of time to make decisions and make sure that you’re making the best decision. And we dropped some of that out. Maybe halfway through we’re like “It can’t be Shredder. He’s a human. It’s too much, too soon. He’s too big of a presence.” For this story about the Turtles being accepted and finding a place in the world, it would really make sense and it would really help the story if the villain was a mutant like they are, with a similar backstory and [who could maybe be able to have a conversation with Splinter about like, “Look, we both hate humans. You go about it this way, I’m just going about it this way.” And we’re like, “That’s what this movie needs.” Hence Superfly and also deviating from the Baxter Stockman canon to create that character.
io9: Now Shredder isn’t the only big Turtles thing you hold back here. We don’t get Casey Jones, Krang, about a million other things. Was that hard? I mean, obviously if you made a sequel, you could use more things, but a sequel is never guaranteed. Was it hard not to use every toy in the toy box—almost literally, in this case—for the first movie?
Rowe: There [was a] point where we were like, “This is coming together pretty good. We’re liking what we Source: Gizmodo