WonderCon 2016: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 Panel Recap
The long awaited Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows from Paramount Pictures took the stage at the Microsoft Theater as part of WonderCon 2016, the sister of San Diego's famous ComicCon convention. Megan Fox and Stephen Amell joined producers Andrew Form and Brad Fuller for the film's WonderCon panel that presented clips from the film as well as a Q&A with the stars. We also learned who will be voicing the longstanding TMNT supervillain Krang, Portlandia star Fred Armisen.
The footage showed a highly choreographed action sequence confrontation in which April O'Neil (Megan Fox) finds herself on the run from four ninja star-throwing men in black that are part of the villainous Foot Clan in a New York alleyway. Just as it looks like she's surrounded, the villains begin to get knocked out by flying objects. We then learn that it's coming from Casey Jones, who has come in to save O'Neil, full on with hockey gear and a mask. Amell joked, "I'm Canadian, man. That's like asking people with feet if they walk." At the conclusion of the fight there's a comedic moment of Casey Jones mumbling his name under the mask to what April O'Neil is deeply confused.
"Casey Jones is not really a sophisticated fighter," Amell told the crowd when comparing Jones to his popular Arrow character. "He's more like 'see Foot Clan, hit Foot Clan!' ... [He] has a beef to settle with two of the people that the turtles are after in Bebop and Rocksteady. He has information that they want and he very unwillingly comes with them on their journey."
Arnell as charming and good sport as he is, when asked about who would win between Oliver Queen and Casey Jones, gave a funny fictional answer saying, "Oliver would beat Casey Jones" and added, "but Oliver, stupidly, wouldn't kill him and then Casey would come back and ruin his life."
Arnell apologized about Casey Jones' hair saying, "When we meet Casey in the movie, he is far from a vigilante, carrying a hockey stick," and added "He's a corrections officer. I don't think that long hair totally fits the police force."
Megan Fox shared that she is excited to explore some other sides of April O'Neil saying that "I think the first movie spent a lot of time on April being ambitious and trying to achieve a lot career wise," and added "This time it focuses more on her relationship with the turtles and a sense of family. It's more focused on the character and less focused on April's job." She also shared with the audience how she remembers watching TMNT when she was a kid but she would not let her kids watch the movie as they are too young right now.
Producers also talked about a few of the familiar franchise characters that will be making their debut on the big screen and one that had secretly made an appearance in the first film.
"Baxter Stockman shows up for about six frames in movie one," said Form. "He was in movie one and his character got cut out of the movie... He's running TCRI and working with Shredder. He's definitely responsible for helping to mutate Bebop and Rocksteady."
Brad Fuller stated, "The beauty of working with [Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles] is that there's so much in canon to pull from." He added that "there were a number of characters we wanted to put in the first movie. Now in the sequel, we have the chance to put them all in. There are five new characters in the sequel: Bebob, Rocksteady, Baxter Stockman, Krang and Casey Jones."
Tyler Perry is playing the role of Stockman while WWE star Sheamus O'Shaunessy (born Stephen Farrell) is playing Rocksteady and Gary Anthony Williams is Bebop.
"We call them the idiots," says Form of the mutant pair. "...They're Shredder's henchmen and they really bring a lot of comic relief to this movie... Seeing them mutate on the screen is really fun."
Rounding out the cast is Will Arnett, William Fichtner, Laura Linney, Brittany Ishibashi, Brian Tee, Alan Ritchson, Jeremy Howard, Pete Ploszek, and Noel Fisher. Directed by David Green (Earth to Echo) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows opens in theaters June 3rd.