Why didn't Mirage ever try Direct-to-DVD movies?

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by neatoman

Well this thread is quite old but I might as well say the obvious anyway:

Mirage Studios was a very small company and is clearly even smaller now, it's practically defunct. The reason they partnered with 4Kids and got funding from Playmates in the first place, is because it was unlikely Mirage alone could fund and produce animated projects. I'm sure they would have just outsourced the animation to some other foreign company but that is still costly, not to mention you might still want to hire storyboarders and editors to work on it domestically. I'm not saying it was impossible but if they tried it, then it might have lead to a very low budget project.

Not that it really matters wheter or not they could have done it, despite TMNT becoming a pop culture icon, I don't think the ambitions for Mirage Studios itself extended beyond publishing comic books.

Yeah. I mean, wasn't the whole joke of it that it was called "Mirage" because it wasn't even a "real" company but just a couple like-minded guys in a room?

I don't think they ever had the means to pursue such ventures even if the interest was there. They'd have had to partner up with someone like WB to produce it, at which point it would become a WB product with them making all the key decisions, thus negating the entire point of the exercise.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Yeah. I mean, wasn't the whole joke of it that it was called "Mirage" because it wasn't even a "real" company but just a couple like-minded guys in a room?

I don't think they ever had the means to pursue such ventures even if the interest was there. They'd have had to partner up with someone like WB to produce it, at which point it would become a WB product with them making all the key decisions, thus negating the entire point of the exercise.

They did at the end. Or at many times towards the end. Or even near the middle. They literally had options. If "let's adapt TMNT #1 as a movie, completely independent of any studio or financiers" was something that was on the table -- and we know it was because they told us -- then they could have done a lot.

But. Without proper distribution, which they DIDN'T have -- independently -- it would have largely just been shot into a vacuum. Which honestly even Turtles Forever was. Guaranteed more people know about even TMNT 2007 (which honestly and sadly isn't even that many) than know that Turtles Forever even exist.

[Leo656]

That's a good point. And you're right, "Turtles Forever" seems like something most people just plain don't know about. If you just explain the basic concept of it to people, it sounds like the kind of thing that should've been a huge, "Spider-Verse" type of thing that got a lot of attention and did huge business. But you still get a ton of, "Where was I when they made that? I never heard about it."

It definitely should've been a much bigger deal than it is/was. Instead, it's like "Remember when they did a cartoon movie where the cartoon TMNT that everyone remembers teamed up with the cartoon TMNT that nobody remembers? And then when they put it on DVD they cut 10 minutes off it and then never re-released it properly? Awesome." If someone announced a project like that Now you'd expect it to be this huge, heavily-marketed thing. It's crazy that it's such a footnote and that most people who would self-identify as TMNT Fans don't know about it.

Granted, Nick/Viacom could theoretically do more to make people aware of it. BUT, they didn't make it, therefore it's not worth anyone seeing and therefore they're not inclined to make more noise about it. Just like the 4Kids show in general.

[IMJ]

The Archie stuff is begging for a D2V animation. Hell, even a "TMNT Meets Archie" based on the one-shot comic would be awesome. And imagine if it was animated in the style of the 80's "Lil Archies" show...... awesome.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by Leo656

That's a good point. And you're right, "Turtles Forever" seems like something most people just plain don't know about. If you just explain the basic concept of it to people, it sounds like the kind of thing that should've been a huge, "Spider-Verse" type of thing that got a lot of attention and did huge business. But you still get a ton of, "Where was I when they made that? I never heard about it."

It definitely should've been a much bigger deal than it is/was. Instead, it's like "Remember when they did a cartoon movie where the cartoon TMNT that everyone remembers teamed up with the cartoon TMNT that nobody remembers? And then when they put it on DVD they cut 10 minutes off it and then never re-released it properly? Awesome." If someone announced a project like that Now you'd expect it to be this huge, heavily-marketed thing. It's crazy that it's such a footnote and that most people who would self-identify as TMNT Fans don't know about it.

Granted, Nick/Viacom could theoretically do more to make people aware of it. BUT, they didn't make it, therefore it's not worth anyone seeing and therefore they're not inclined to make more noise about it. Just like the 4Kids show in general.

Funny story. One time me and my friends were hanging out and it was kinda late. Somehow the topic of Ninja Turtles came up and I asked them if they ever saw the one where 'the classic Ninja Turtles met the modern day (at the time) ones?' They thought I was joking and were like 'nuh uh'. So despite it being 1 in the morning or whatever, I pulled out the disc and we watched the movie.

The point though was, this was merely a 1-2 years after it was released on DVD. This wasn't like 10-20 years ago where you'd go 'heeeeeeey, wasn't there a TMNT crossover thing back then?' This was still kinda/sorta 'recent' and I believe at the time season 1 of 2012 TMNT was still 'new', as in every episode was during its first run. And already it was this weird obscure thing to the general public at large. Sure, a big deal for Ninja Turtles fans, but a weird obscure thing for everyone else.

[CyberCubed]

A lot of revisionist history is being posted in this thread. Turtles Forever was definitely treated like a huge event in 2009. It had a screening before it aired which Roseangelo and Andrew attended and then aired on TV on Saturday morning after Season 7 concluded and was treated like a huge series finale. And was then repeated a bunch of times up through at least 2010 before TMNT left the block. The DVD featured a released that was cut was because FUNimation/4kids were idiots, but the UK release feature the full version with the extra 10 minutes, and besides that it's easy to watch online.

There was also a relaunch of the classic toyline to support the movie in 2009, which is why Playmates re-released all the classic 1988 figures for the first time since the early 2000's when the movie came out. In toy stores in 2009-2010 you saw all the classic '88 figures of the Turtles, Shredder, Krang, Bebop, Rocksteady, the Foot, etc.

Everyone knows about it too. The young zoomers on reddit and twitter are aware of the movie even from people who didn't follow the 2k3 series when it was airing. That's why when the Nick 2012 series did their crossovers with the 80's Turtles everyone knew this was the "second time" they were doing this and not the first time since Turtles Forever aired.

So I find it odd there's some revisionist history being posted here, since I know everyone posting in this thread right now was around when this was happening.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

A lot of revisionist history is being posted in this thread. Turtles Forever was definitely treated like a huge event in 2009. It had a screening before it aired which Roseangelo and Andrew attended and then aired on TV on Saturday morning after Season 7 concluded and was treated like a huge series finale. And was then repeated a bunch of times up through at least 2010 before TMNT left the block. The DVD featured a released that was cut was because FUNimation/4kids were idiots, but the UK release feature the full version with the extra 10 minutes, and besides that it's easy to watch online.

There was also a relaunch of the classic toyline to support the movie in 2009, which is why Playmates re-released all the classic 1988 figures for the first time since the early 2000's when the movie came out. In toy stores in 2009-2010 you saw all the classic '88 figures of the Turtles, Shredder, Krang, Bebop, Rocksteady, the Foot, etc.

Everyone knows about it too. The young zoomers on reddit and twitter are aware of the movie even from people who didn't follow the 2k3 series when it was airing. That's why when the Nick 2012 series did their crossovers with the 80's Turtles everyone knew this was the "second time" they were doing this and not the first time since Turtles Forever aired.

So I find it odd there's some revisionist history being posted here, since I know everyone posting in this thread right now was around when this was happening.

Yeah, it was a huge event. For Ninja Turtles fans. Not so much for everybody else. Of my friend group I was the only big Ninja Turtles fan, everyone else was more into anime or wrestling. They were more of the 'oh yeah, I remember them back in the day' and 'would buy a Hot Topic shirt of them' types, but they weren't watching Back to the Sewers every week or whatever. FullMetal Alchemist Brotherhood and whatever else was going back then were a bigger deal to them.

Remember this is a Ninja Turtles forum, named after the villainous lair from the 80's cartoon no less. Naturally if you only base yourself on how people would react on this forum the return of the 80's Turtles would appear like the second coming. Not so much anywhere else though.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

A lot of revisionist history is being posted in this thread. Turtles Forever was definitely treated like a huge event in 2009. It had a screening before it aired which Roseangelo and Andrew attended

Which was an AWESOME event... but we're talking about a theater with like 50 people in it. And I almost didn't even get in... I didn't play the "go around the convention and gather up bandannas (or something) from people" fetch quest you had to do to get a ticket, but I waited in line anyway and GreenWillow like pled with the security guy to let me in. Very nice of her.

[IMJ]

I didn't know that it had any kind of theatrical presentation, but I remember it seemed like a big deal for the Cartoon Network at the time.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Which was an AWESOME event... but we're talking about a theater with like 50 people in it. And I almost didn't even get in... I didn't play the "go around the convention and gather up bandannas (or something) from people" fetch quest you had to do to get a ticket, but I waited in line anyway and GreenWillow like pled with the security guy to let me in. Very nice of her.

That was definitely awesome of her.

But yeah, Turtles Forever might've been a huge event for hardcores but a lot of the "casuals" missed out on it, and that's the majority of people who would call themselves "TMNT Fans". Whenever one of the TMNT Facebook pages post anything from it there's always a ton of people saying "What the heck was this?! When did this come out?" and so on. So not "everyone" definitely saw it or knew about it.

And past that, it's been over a decade since anyone made noise about it, so if you became a fan, say, after the Nick/Viacom buyout, like you got into TMNT because of the Nicktoon or (god forbid) BayTurtles movies, it's likely you never saw it or heard about it.