Directed by Jonathan Liebesman, the film found its first cast member last month in Megan Fox, who is of course reuniting with producer Bay after working together on the first two instalments in the original Transformers trilogy.
Then last week, we heard that the first of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, themselves, had been found, with Alan Ritchson (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) cast as Raphael.
Deadline are now reporting that Paramount have found their other three turtles, with Pete Ploszek, Jeremy Howard, and Noel Fisher coming on board for the Summer 2014 blockbuster, playing Leonardo, Donatello, and Michaelangelo, respectively.
Ploszek is a graduate from the USC Masters program, with credits including Parks and Recreation and Shameless. Howard has a handful of Breaking Bad episodes to his name, and will soon be seen alongside Jake Johnson, Ron Livingston, Sterling Beaumon, and Zoe Kazan in The Pretty One. And Fisher has most recently also been seen in the US version of Shameless, along with prominent roles in Hatfield & McCoys and The Booth at the End, and starred in the final instalment of The Twilight Saga last year.
Liebesman is directing from a script co-written by Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol), and production is expected to get underway in the next few months.
With the four Turtles now cast, along with Fox in the female lead, our eyes are fixed firmly on who will be taking the lead villain role as Shredder and the teacher role of Splinter. Both very important roles, with Splinter in particularly likely to be much older than the young leading quartet, and I’m interested to see if the studio, Liebesman, and Bay go for well-known names for the two.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is set for release on 6th June, 2014, and it’s definitely shaping up to be a must-see movie of next year. The studio are reportedly eyeing the film as a potential franchise, which could really give Ritchson, Ploszek, Howard, and Fisher a boost to their emergent careers.