Viacom Buys The Ninja Turtles!

Photos

Ninja Turtles | Photo 02

see larger image

uploaded by Manny Castro

If the news of Disney buying Marvel wasn't shocking enough, now it's being announced that Viacom has purchased the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for $60 million. And they're getting straight to work on it. The first order of business is a CG animated series for Nickelodeon that will air in 2012. Toy products will continue to be made through Playmates. And the live action movie that was announced some time ago is still in development but now will be made and released through Paramount. The original release date for the movie was 2011, but the studio is now saying 2012. So, the movie and cartoon series will be a one-two punch.

TMNT was first introduced as a comic book in 1984. It then became a worldwide hit cartoon series in 1987 and a live-action movie franchise in 1990. By 1993 the fad had died. The third movie flopped and was hated by fans across the board. And the cartoon series was replaced in popularity by Power Rangers. In 2003 they made a comeback through a cartoon series on FOX and 4Kids Entertainment. The success of the show led to an animated feature film in 2007 that had moderate box office returns.

The franchise is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year with a relaunch of the original toyline, a DVD and Blu Ray re-release of the four movies, and a TV movie titled, Turtles Forever, which features a crossover between the characters from the comics, `87 series, `03 series, and movies. It is scheduled to premiere on November 15 at CW4Kids.