Do you think the John Fusco draft was worse than the "Bay" movie?

[saul]

John Fusco was first hired in 2009 (I think) to write the new Turtle movie, but Paramount rejected his script saying it "wasn't great".

Now, with the "Micheal Bay" version (written by Appelbaum and Nemec) haven gotten a bad rap, how much better or worse could the Fusco version have been for the studio to publicly reject it?

[Powder]

I heard it was too dark/violent. I bet it was prolly more up our alley.

[Galactus]

Well we don't know but I can't imagine it being worse.

Originally Posted by Powder

I heard it was too dark/violent. I bet it was prolly more up our alley.

Well they asked him to rewrite it and add more humour but after he did they still weren't happy. Given Fusco's other work it seems unlikely either of his scripts lacked humour. I suppose it's possible he went against his usual writing grain and wote something really serious but more likely given TMNT's history it probably had appropriate humour and lacked the "cowabunga dudes" and references to weird pizza toppings every other sentence.

[Bob]

I'd love to get my hands on that script. My assumption would be, given the apparent darkness levels, that Paramount were concerned about a mainstream audience's reaction to it.

[CyberCubed]

I don't think anything could have possibly been worse than alien turtles, a bizarro alien Shredder, and the Foot not being ninja's.

[Toby Barrett]

Four comedians in green facepaint cracking jokes?

[zodiac brave]

Originally Posted by Toby Barrett

Four comedians in green facepaint cracking jokes?

starring jason segel as leonardo
ed helms as donatello
seth rogen as raphael
jonah hill as michelangelo
paul rudd as casey jones
amy poehler as april o'neil
jane lynch as splinter
kevin hart as baxter stockman
and hologram patrice o'neal as shredder



but seriously...NO.

[Venom]

Originally Posted by zodiac brave

but seriously...NO.

He was referencing Roger Corman's vision for a Ninja Turtle movie, just in case ya didn't catch it.

[Andrew NDB]

From what I understand the only draft that people have read online about the aliens and Shrader and all that is the Fusco draft. And that was before Bay or the Nick buyout was anywhere on the horizon.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

From what I understand the only draft that people have read online about the aliens and Shrader and all that is the Fusco draft. And that was before Bay or the Nick buyout was anywhere on the horizon.

I recall Peter Laird saying he liked Fusco's script which is why the movie deal was signed, I doubt he would have approved of alien Turtles.

[Slap-Happy]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

I recall Peter Laird saying he liked Fusco's script which is why the movie deal was signed, I doubt he would have approved of alien Turtles.

Yeah, that script also has "Appelbaum & Nemec" at the top of most pages. It isn't Fusco's

[pannoni1]

A movie that is dark/violent doesn't necessarily make a movie "awful", and us hardcore surely would have approved of a darker version which may not do all that well by scaring away some of the more casual crowd, but Fusco's had the potential to really exploit why the original Mirage universe was violent. The studio could have simply PG-13-fied it, but it contained much more of what us was seeking, and most importantly, the lack of aliens. At least have a dark Shredder and Foot that is a REAL threat to the Turtles that no other version has ever shown. The actors/crew could have always ad-libbed some extra jokes/references along anyways that Fusco forgot, which is much easier to do than have some bizarre creatures with a meddled plot.