Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem director Jeff Rowe confirmed that franchise co-creator Kevin Eastman has a very sweet cameo in the film.
Speaking to /Film, the filmmaker was asked where Eastman appears given that his name features in the movie’s credits. “He’s the human who helps Splinter up at the end. He helps him out. And we wanted that to be someone meaningful to the franchise, and we were so happy Kevin was willing to do that,” Rowe explained. “I’m appreciative of the Stan Lee cameos in Marvel films, and it felt like a great way to honor him and the beautiful gift he has given the world.”
Eastman is credited as one of the co-creators of the entire Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise alongside Peter Laird. The duo designed and wrote the Heroes in a Half-Shell in 1983 to be a post-modern parody of the era’s popular superheroes, in particular Frank Miller’s run on Daredevil. Eschewing the popular grim and gritty stories that were rising in popularity at the time, TMNT sought to lightly mock the tropes; hence why several aspects of their origin story are near-identical that of Matt Murdock.
TMNT For Life
Despite the series’ satirical nature, the brand exploded in popularity, quickly gaining its own animated series, which made the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles a household name. The franchise has undergone several reboots and reimaginings, even spawning a live-action adaptation that was successful enough to earn a sequel. Mutant Mayhem is the latest film to put a new spin on Raphael, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Leonardo as it follows the brothers and their adoptive father Splinter in a quest to protect the human world that has shunned them against the nefarious plans of the evil Superfly.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is now in theaters.
