During Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem's mid-credits scene (this is your final SPOILER warning), the villainous Cynthia Utrom is shown observing the four Heroes in a Half-Shell and desperate to recapture them.
We don't initially see who she's talking to, but the then camera pans to the unmistakable form of Shredder as he too looks over New York City. With that, the stage is set for both the upcoming sequel and Paramount+'s two-season TV series.
We don't anticipate Shredder making his full-blown debut until the Mutant Mayhem follow-up arrives in theaters, and in an interview with Uproxx (via Toonado.com), director Jeff Lowe said getting to bring Shredder to the screen was what convinced him to return for the planned sequel.
He even went on to say that there was a time when the iconic villain was this first instalment's primary antagonist in place of Super-Fly.
"He was in the movie for a long time, for a year and a half," the filmmaker confirmed. "And then it just did not work. And we were just banging our head against the wall and we had two big story problems. One, the Turtles were in high school on page 30, so they got exactly what they wanted way too early."
"And it also meant that the movie was a reset 30 minutes in, which was just broken. And then Shredder was the villain and it was too big of a character too soon. And you didn’t understand how a crime boss, which is how we were playing him, was connected to these teenagers."
"It just got too far away from the most simple essential story, which is teens wanting to fit in - the metaphor being that they are actual mutants and actually shunned by society," Lowe continued. "It’s not just a feeling for them. And having a villain that was also a mutant and had similar experiences just made the themes and the story all kind of come together."
Asked whether any of these early Shredder ideas will find their way into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem 2, the director confirmed that will not be the case.
Needless to say, it's going to be very exciting seeing a fresh spin put on Shredder and, should a third instalment eventually happen, we have to believe Krang is likely somewhere on the horizon as well.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is now playing in theaters.