2003 not good enough to warrant Live Action Blockbuster?
 

Seems like the '87 Wolf toon, and the 2012 Nick toon seem to be the peaks of the franchise in terms of popularity, and quality. As we can seen by their box office number off spring.

2012 and Nick brought a resurgence to the property with new fans, as well as a heavy dose of nostalgia for those who grew up with the property.

I ask, why is it the 2003 series didn't get a big budget, serious live action treatment the way the bookend cartoon series did? Was it not as well liked ... Not as good as either of the other two previous cartoons? Or just stuck in an awkward down period of the franchise? Too early for a nostalgic revival, yet not the original phenomenon ...

You're forgetting TMNT, which was very successful. It wasn't live action, but it was a big budget theatrical release that represented that era of the turtles.

So many reasons.... the 2k3 series did spawn the 07 CGI movie, but the budget for that was 34 million considerably smaller than the new movie.

But anyway, the property at that time was still owned by Peter Laird/ Mirage and they did not have the money or pull to make a big budget movie.

The 2k3 series was also only a saturday morning cartoon and never on a major network except Cartoon Network for a short time.

The 2k3 series kept the franchise alive and ultimately led to the sale of the property to Nick.

2K3 series was great and successful in its own right.

The bottom line TMNT did not have the financial backing to make a big blockbuster hit.

TMNT had the potential to be my favourite movie of all time! At the time, I was so unbelievably hyped!

They even had the 2003 logo on the initial poster and teaser so I was basically mislead thinking this was gonna be like a re-telling of the 2003 Series with characters like Bishop or Hun included.

Needless to say I was disappointed, but still enjoy the movie very much to this day.

I'm not forgetting it. I said big budget live action. The success of all the live action films are superior (adjusting for inflation) to the February released animated feature, TMNT. If the 2k3 show was popular or of the quality fans claim why wouldn't it have spawned a truly big budget live action feature? The way Nick did within just a year of owning the property.

Because fans don't know what they're talking about. It was popular as far as cartoons go, & had some good moments, but anyone who thinks it was as big as the OT is trippin'. The fact it was able to spawn a movie of any kind is kind of surprising.

Agreed.

:oops:

ummmm...errr....well...

maybe i shouldn't.....

Powder is right 2K3 was not on the level of the OT. OT was bringing in NFL money and 2k3 was bringing in MLS (US Soccer) money :lol:


Actually the 2014 is the first and only big budget live action movie in TMNT's history.

Yea, good call. The rest were actual indie flicks. Surprised it took this long.

Seems like it.

Well, there's Turtles Forever for that.

Well, your signature already tells us what's on your mind. :tlol:

I don't recall the 2012 series getting a live action thing... did I miss something?

The 1990 movie (and sequels) appears to be a mix of the original cartoon along with some inspiration from the comics. As the first "blockbuster" movie, the 2014 movie seems, far as I can figure, a mash-up of a variety of various sources, not simply inspired from a single source and really that's prob the best way to go about it imo. The eye color and variation in stature seem to have been inspired by 2012 for sure, but just those details. I'm not too familiar with 2003, but in the same vein as 2012 it could stand to reason it helped inspire some of the stature/musculature of the characters.

[QUOTE=IndigoErth;1332048]I don't recall the 2012 series getting a live action thing... did I miss something?


I was thinking the same thing

Well it did not have the numbers of the OT, but that would've been difficult. It was made darker and more mature, so it couldn't have had as wide of an audience, so it is tough to compare.

Quality-wise, though, there is no question it is the best of the cartoons. Great stories, a long-form narrative, etc. It's not even close.

That said, I don't remember enjoying the 2007 movie much.

Maybe not yet, but I reckon 2014 movie has a bit of 2012 influence in it particularly Raph being the big brawler, srawny thin geeky Donnie, short Mikey and awkward Leo.

The '90 film wasn't a direct adaptation of the '87 Wolf Toon. It was more Mirage, with Wolf Toon elements crossed over. I mean basically what the popularity of the cartoon spawned off. No movie has been a literal continuation of the cartoon that spawned it. Same goes for 2014 here. The Nick Toon popularity, and franchise resurgence gave it the legs to be produced. To be something that could be considered profitable on a large scale. I see a lot of children knee deep in turtles lore now, on a slightly smaller scale than the late 80s / early 90s. I never saw that during the 2k3 Toon / 2007 film's era. It simply wasn't that popular.

Is this another "2k3 sucks" thread? I guess alliance will show up any minute now. :roll:

For my money, 2k3 was not as popular as the Fred Wolf series, but it was higher in quality. The fact that there wasn't a live-action film at the time is no reflection on the quality of the 2k3 series. Like Redeemer said, it had more to do with who had the ownership and the financial backing behind the series at the time.

If we're going to make the argument that something making huge amounts of money means it's superior in quality, we may as well give Fifty Shades of Grey the Nobel Prize in Literature.

So I take it I'm the only one who thinks 2k3 not getting a live-action film was more of a blessing in disguise? 'Cause I can't really see it being translated well in any way.

I get people point to the '07 film as being the closest to the series getting a movie, but that movie in particular seemed more it wanted to be a part of the previous movie's continuity rather than it taking place during the show, the whole "let's shoe-horn Karai just because she's a familiar face from the show" non-withstanding. And while it's clear 2k3 updated it's character designs to look more like the '07's ones in BttS, I still don't attribute to "Oh, this show and this movie must've happened in the same universe!" sort of thing and chalk it up to marketing consistency, despite it being inconsistent within the show itself.

Besides, I'm more than content with Turtles Forever being the only 2k3-related movie. Yes, know it wasn't theatrical and was a made-for-TV movie, but my point still stands, it's still movie by the standards that it's at least over 60 minutes.

Not sure it was a made for tv movie. The original had no room for commercial breaks.

But yeah the 07 movie bombed big time. It was supposed to be its own trilogy, but it never made past the first one.