'Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' And 'The Loud House' Animated Movies In The Works At Netflix
Even though Netflix has been dishing out plenty of original movies every month, their feature length animated fare has yet to find as much acclaim and success as their live-action film. But that might change with two new animated properties getting their own movies at Netflix.
Nickelodeon is teaming with Netflix for two movies based on their animated shows Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Loud House, two of the cable channel's most popular programs. However, it sounds like they both movies won't be continuations of the shows, but new, original stories that will stand on their own while also promoting the shows that exist.
Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles premiered on Nickelodeon last year, giving the heroes in a half-shell quite the makeover. Not only was the dynamic of the team changed a bit with Raphael becoming the leader and Leonardo turning into the "coolest" turtle of the group, but the whole gang was given new weapons with mystical powers. Plus, the turtles' friend April O'Neil was turned into a feisty young black girl.
A big part of the appeal for Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the impressive voice cast. Not only are Leo, Mikey, Raph and Donny voiced by Ben Schwartz, Brandon Mychal Smith, Omar Benson Miller, and Josh Brener, but the villain line-up features the talents of Lena Headey as Big Mama, Johnny Rotten as a beefy, deadly pig chef named Meat Sweats, Rhys Darby as Hypno-potatmus, Tom Kenny as Alberto, John Michael Higgins as Warren Stone, John Cena as Baron Draxumand much more.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles veteran Rob Paulsen was the voice director for the series, which was produced by Andy Suriano, a character designer on Samurai Jack, along with Ant Ward, a supervising producer from the previous iteration of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It's not clear if the team will be brought in to work on the animated movie or not, or even if the same voice cast will be utilized.
The Loud House
Unless you have kids, there's a good chance you haven't heard of The Loud House until now. The series follows the chaotic everyday life of a boy named Lincoln Loud, who is the middle child and only son in a large family with 10 sisters.
The Loud House is Nickelodeon's second most popular show in their targeted demographic of kids aged 2 to 11. Only SpongeBob SquarePants is more popular. The Loud House was also an instant sensation, becoming one of the highest rated children's animated shows in the United States within the first month of its debut. The series is heading into its fourth season and it even has a spin-off in the works called The Casagrandes.
The series has also garnered acclaim for bringing an impressive amount of diversity to the table. The GLAAD Media Awards even nominated the series for their inclusion of the characters Howard and Harold McBride, supporting characters who are an interracial gay married couple.
The Loud House is created by Chris Savino, but it's not clear how involved he or anyone else from the show will be with the movie.
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The announcement of both these Nickelodeon projects at Netflix came from Viacom's fiscal first quarter earnings call this morning, so there weren't too many specific details on either project. But Viacom CEO Bob Bakish said (via Deadline):
"This partnership with Netflix is part of Nickelodeon and Viacom's broader efforts to tap into Nickelodeon's library of culturally resonant properties and produce new content for third-party digital and linear platforms."
Considering the popularity of both shows on Nickelodeon, these are bound to be big projects for Netflix. We'll have more details as soon as they become available.