Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles , Bay’s latest film as a producer, opened with $65 million, and a sequel is already underway. There is no use in trying; Bay is unbeatable.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Industrial Light & Magic / Paramount Pictures
This weekend, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — the latest feature film version of the late '80s/early '90s comic-book-turned-animated-TV-series-turned-video-game — opened with an estimated $65 million. That debut is by far the best in the franchise's history, even adjusting for inflation. More importantly, it's the best ever debut for a film produced, but not directed, by Michael Bay — and Paramount Pictures just announced that Bay will also produce the sequel, due in June 2016.
Until this weekend, Bay's output as a producer through his company Platinum Dunes has been largely limited to (relatively) low-budget horror films, including remakes of Friday the 13, Nightmare on Elm Street, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, as well as the recently-launched horror franchise The Purge. While most Platinum Dunes films opened at No. 1 on their respective weekends, none broke $100 million at the domestic box office.
But that has all changed with Ninja Turtles, Bay's first attempt as a producer to reboot a beloved artifact of '80s/early '90s childhoods into a glossy, CG-laden action spectacular, recreating the success he's had as a director with Transformers. Despite early controversy over whether the Turtles had been rebooted into aliens (ultimately, they were not), virtually uniform critical revulsion, and a ho-hum "B" rating from audience polling firm CinemaScore, Ninja Turtles notched one of the best ever debuts in the usually sleepy month of August.
With a sequel is underway, Bay is returning to produce along with partners Andrew Form and Brad Fuller, and screenwriters Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec (Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol). (Director Jonathan Liebesman, however, was not part of Paramount's announcement, which is not a good sign that he will also return.)
To say the least, it has been a potent summer for Bay. The Purge: Anarchy has bested its predecessor in domestic and global grosses, despite a lower debut weekend. And while Transformers: Age of Extinction dropped more than $100 million in U.S. box office from 2011's Transformers: Dark of the Moon, it is the first film released in 2014 to make more than $1 billion — due in part to an 82% increase at the Chinese box office between the third and fourth Transformers movies.
All of this success, in fact, can only lead to one conclusion:
Paramount Pictures / Via teendotcom.tumblr.com
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