Earlier this year, it was announced that the wildly popular The Last Ronin graphic novel, a story that depicts a future where only one of the Ninja Turtles has survived their war against the Foot Clan, would be receiving a video game adaptation in the same vein as Sony's God of War.
Original TMNT creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird reunited for the five-issue IDW miniseries in 2020 and were joined by writer Tom Waltz and artists Esau & Isaac Escorza and Ben Bishop. The comic took off in popularity in 2021, with the second and third issues ranking in the top 50 comics sold for that year.
Recently, Eastman was asked why The Last Ronin was becoming a video game instead of a television series or movie. And Eastman shared that they actually did approach Nickelodeon, who felt that the story was better suited for video games.
"Nickelodeon, who has always been a great partner and great friend to all the things in letting us do what we do, they really didn’t wanna take The Last Ronin concept into full-on mainstream, like a big live-action movie, something to compete with Mutant Mayhem (which is gonna be phenomenally awesome),” Eastman said.
“They collectively came up with the idea of a video game because we could go all the way there. They could basically take it all the way into all things Ronin-verse. They’ve taken all the different drawings and moments… the stuff we’ve seen so far is goosebump city. It’s really phenomenal. They took stuff right out of the pages of the comic book."
Of course, Nickelodeon naturally did not want to have a competing TMNT project taking attention away from its upcoming animated Mutant Mayhem film, which hits U.S. theaters later this week.
With The Last Ronin being a relatively new project, if the video game is released and proves popular, don't be surprised if an animated or live-action film follows, shortly thereafter.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin Official Synopsis: What terrible events destroyed his family and left New York a crumbling, post-apocalyptic nightmare? All will be revealed in this climactic Turtle tale that sees longtime friends becoming enemies and new allies emerging in the most unexpected places. Can the surviving Turtle triumph?
Eastman and Laird are joined by writer Tom Waltz, who penned the first 100 issues of IDW's ongoing TMNT series, and artists Esau & Isaac Escorza (Heavy Metal) and Ben Bishop (The Far Side of the Moon) with an Introduction by filmmaker Robert Rodriguez!