A pitch perfect Issue 1 adaptation on the big screen.
 

What do you think of this idea?

It would be a step by step telling of issue 1 of the Mirage comics (even more than the 1990 film) with obscure details such as the character of Oroku Nagi being implemented in order to make the film as faithful as possible.

No loosening up on the source material, just a pitch perfect live action or animated adaptation for the big screen with maybe more scenes in order to give the film more length and depth, but in the same spirit as the original comics.

I would love to see this done.

I think the concept would have more legs as a Nettflix or Amazon limited series.

Do you think hardcore Mirage TMNT without any nostalgic FW elements would get enough normies into the average movie theater to make a profit?

I think the radical difference in tone would spike people's curiosity and prompt them to see it.

While I would love to see something turtle related set in the Mirage universe, I'd really rather prefer it not be another origin story. At least not at the outset.

That issue has been reprinted so many times, and every comic movie starts with an origin story of some sort.

I'd be far more interested in something that started at another time point, and then reflected back on the origin.

For instance, start with The Foot's attack on April's building.
We get good character stuff from all the guys, Splinter, and April. It's Casey's first appearance to the rest of the main cast. We'd get to see the Foot actually be competent, and Shredder be menacing. Good action, and a decent sting as they drive to NoHo.

Then that whole first season is the rebuilding, and then we can revisit the origin story. Maybe Casey learns it from April....I dunno.

I dunno it would take a lot of padding to turn a 40 page comic into a feature length film.

To be fair, a lot of the details such as the turtles' childhood and the entire story of Hamato Yoshi could take up a lot of time in a film, while being short in comic book format.

Although a movie without April and Casey would be weird, I still think it has potential and won't run into the problem of having characters under-developed due to there being too many of them.

Why not make it short film?

I would like to see a miniseries on netflix or something like what they are doing with the daredevil series.

This is the problem I see with trying to turn it into a movie. I think it would be better to combine issues 1 and 2 of Mirage into a movie

This is initially what I was thinking about as well, but I feel issue 1 would be better as a standalone movie as it would be weird in my opinion having the big bad eliminated halfway through the film and then introduce April and Baxter in the second half.

While I would love seeing a #1 movie faithfully done, I don't think it'd make a good movie, it's a great comic, but I think some changes need to be done for it to be a engaging movie.

Yeah, it'd be like a 30 minute movie. Needs more meat. Far be it from me to bemoan well-meaning Mirage adaptations, though.

If I was making an Issue 1 movie, I would add in additional scenes but keep every scene from the comic book panels intact.

For example, right after the beginning when the turtles beat up the Purple Dragon thugs and enter the sewers to meet Splinter, we are first shown a scene of Splinter having the turtles train against each other and then test their skills against him before actually sitting down and telling them their origin story.

I wouldn't be that slavish to it. And would update it from a 1984 sensibility to a 2017 sensibility.

But as other has said there is not enough material to make a movie out of. You realize the 1990 movie took parts from like 4 or 5 different Mirage Comics right??? There just isn't enough material. I also don't think Nick would allow it, bc in Mirage TMNT starts the fight, more of villainous/anti hero look for TMNT which Nick probably doesn't want.

Yes, I know that.

I disagree, since many of the panels in the comics in my opinion can be adapted into much longer movie scenes rather than being glossed over in a matter of seconds (For e.g..Splinter raising the turtles from childhood and training them, Shredder leaving Japan and becoming the leader of the New York Branch of the Foot, The whole angle exploring the relationship between Hamato Yoshi, Tang Shen and Oroku Nagi etc.).

Have it all build up to the big epic fight on the rooftop, but I also think its possible to add in additional scenes exploring the personalities of the turtles, training scenes as I said before, and so on without compromising what happened in the original story.

Yeah, true that unfortunately.

The Reason I don't think it can be done is bc of previous attempts the most recent example would be Batman: Killing Joke. They add I want to say 30-45 mins of stuff that wasn't in the comic. And that movie has been criticized so badly..... its not even funny. But that pretty much why I don't think a direct adaptation of a comic could be made into a movie.

Yeah, they added a bunch of stuff to both Willy Wonka and The Grinch, to try and flesh it out while still keeping it faithful to the source material...to varied success.

It'd be a treat as an animated DTV feature, but otherwise I want something of a broader scale. Let's do Triceratons, Battle Nexus, things like that. Otherworldly enemies, dimension hopping, space, Utroms, stuff that rings true to Mirage but caters to the Marvel normie-geek crowd without having to pander to Fred Wolf nostalgia.

You're not wrong but... you also realize the 1990 movie didn't even have large chunks of #1 in it, right? Like, important character ones. And merged Orokus together and stuff. I want to see my damn Ninja Turtles with climbing claws and shuriken, too. :)

You're not wrong but... you also realize the 1990 movie didn't even have large chunks of #1 in it, right? Like, important character ones. And merged Orokus together and stuff.

If we were going full on adaptation mode, I'd do #1 but just not have Saki die (instead, have Saki win and beat back the Turtles... sort of merge this in later, to #10), then Raphael (a condensed but updated version), Leo special, #10, #11, and basically Return to New York exactly as written, with that being the big Saki defeat.