Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem once again features the four Heroes in a Half Shell forced to live in New York City's sewers. They grow increasingly fed up with that as the story progresses and the teens reason that, if they can save the Big Apple from Superfly, the public will embrace them.
That's an idea that they've gotten from pop culture, including 2019's Avengers: Endgame. In the Marvel Studios blockbuster, The Hulk's heroic deeds made him more approachable on the street as a superhero rather than a monster, but how did this MCU reference end up in the latest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie?
Talking to The Hollywood Reporter (via Toonado.com), filmmaker Jeff Rowe was asked if there were ever any issues with throwing this Easter Egg into the mix and shed new light on how Mutant Mayhem's creative team made it relevant to this reboot.
"No, that was fine. It was just funny," he says. "There’s so many of those things that we would just do, like the cold open. We would just do it and then we would show [Paramount] that it worked in the execution. And then it was like, 'Well, we can’t say no to that. It’s working, it’s getting a laugh in this test screening.'"
"But that Avengers reference, we were talking about this story point, like, 'Why do the Turtles think that this will be successful?' And I think Seth was like, 'Oh, I’m sure they’ve seen Avengers.' And for them, it’s like, 'The Hulk saves the world [in Avengers: Endgame], so no one’s scared of him, and he can take selfies with people in a diner.'"
"And then when it came time to record the kids debating this decision," Rowe continued, "we were like, 'We should just have them use the exact argument that we’re using in our story discussions. Let’s have the kids say that.'"
It's a clever nod to the MCU and one we're sure many of you had fun with.
The movie ends by firmly establishing an exciting new status quo for the awesome foursome, and we anticipate that being explored in Paramount+'s two-season TV series before the big screen sequel rolls around.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is now playing in theaters.