Do We Really Need A 'TMNT 2'?

In case you saw Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and realized you absolutely cannot get enough giant CGI reptiles, don't worry: it's not quite over yet. On Sunday, Paramount Pictures revealed that a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sequel is already in the works. Thanks to all the die-hard TMNT fans, HuffPost's Jessica Goodman reports the film did much better than expected at the box office, coming out ahead of Guardians Of The Galaxy . "We felt a great responsibility to ensure audiences were going to experience everything they loved about the Turtles, while also getting to see them brought to life in a way they had never been seen before", Paramount's Film Group President Adam Goodman said in a statement, "The result exceeded our high expectations and the response to the film is beyond great, making it all the more fun to get started on the continuation of their story." Lucky for TMNT fans, their unwavering allegiance to the Turtle fandom is paying off with a Ninja Turtles sequel in June of 2016.

Brent Lang of Variety attributes much of TMNT's box office success to 90's nostalgia, writing that the film "appealed to both younger crowds and twenty-somethings who remembered the original 1990s television show, films and toylines with fondness". However, Vulture's Bilgi Ebiri argues that the film takes 90's nostalgia too far, resulting in a story that takes itself "way too seriously". Nick Schager agrees that the turtles just aren't, and will never be, cool, and the film comes off like it's trying a little to hard to update the turtles for a post 90's audience.

So do we really need another TMNT movie? As Warner Bros. Domestic Distribution President Dan Fellman said about disaster movie Into The Storm, "It's all about the bottom line", and TMNT's bottom lie doesn't lie. Fans love it, audiences want it. Chances are, a sequel could do well, but it could do even better if it embraces the silliness of what it is: a movie about talking turtles.