Today, Nickelodeon announced that it has acquired the global rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from The Mirage Group and 4 Kids Entertainment. The rights were sold for roughly $60 million, and include all future rights to the franchise in numerous departments, including television and video games. (The deal should have no effect on the previously released Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Smash-Up and Reshelled games.)
With the deal, Nickelodeon has announced that a new CG-animated series is in the works, set to premiere sometime in 2012. It is possible that the studio is already hard at work on producing a video game to premiere with the series, although nothing has yet been confirmed. Considering the popularity of the franchise, however, it would not be a surprise.
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shares a comedic sensibility with the Nickelodeon DNA, with added layers of action and fantasy that have kept this property an evergreen favorite with multiple generations of audiences,” said Cyma Zarghami, president of Nickelodeon/MTV Kids and Family Group. “We are extremely happy to have the opportunity to be able to focus on this property and creatively re-introduce it to a new generation of kids.”
It’s certainly a shell shock to the system for some folks, though. First Disney acquires Marvel, and now this. Do you think this is a great move for the franchise, or are we in for a lukewarm serving of Turtle soup?
Nickelodeon Acquires Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Posted October 22, 2009 by Robert Workman
Robert Workman is a 10-year veteran journalist, and writes for various websites around the Internet, including AOL GameDaily, Run DLC and Gameplaybook.
3 Comments
October 22, 2009
Marvel acquires Disney? I think you mis-typed that, it's the other way around. So National Amusements (parent company of Viacom, which owns Nickelodeon) now has the TMNT franchise. Good for them. I wonder what effect this will have on the franchise.
October 22, 2009
Yes, TJ that was a typo, thanks.
July 6, 2010
I don't so much mind the release date as the fact that Nickelodeon is going to screw this up like they do all their movies.
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