The Half Shell Heroes will be squaring off with a humanoid warthog in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2, with news that Gary Anthony Williams has been cast in the supporting role of BeBop. His rhinoceros buddy, Rocksteady, has not yet been cast, but the pair are expected to develop into major antagonists.
As in the cartoon series, BeBop and Rocksteady will be introduced as foot soldiers of the villainous Shredder, tasked with taking revenge on the Turtles. BeBop will start the film as a punkish street thug member of a motley crew of misfits, who is wrongly convinced of his intellectual superiority. Over the course of the movie, he’ll evolve into the villainous, trigger-happy pig that fans know and love.
Alan Ritchson, Jeremy Howard, Pete Ploszek and Noel Fisher reprise the roles of Raphael, Donatello, Leonardo and Michelangelo, with Johnny Knoxville again handling voice duties for Leonardo. The human cast includes Megan Fox as April O’Neil, Will Arnett as Vernon, William Fichtner as Eric Sacks, Tyler Perry as scientist Baxter Stockman, Brian Tee as the Shredder, Arrow‘s Stephen Amell as Casey Jones, model Alessandra Ambrosio as Vernon’s new love interest and Laura Linney in an undisclosed role.
David Green (Earth to Echo) inherited directorial duties from Battle: Los Angeles helmer Jonathan Liebesman, and he is working from a script by Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec, the same writing duo behind the original. As someone who really didn’t find much to like about last year’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, it would take a lot to get me excited for this sequel, and a casting report for a humanoid warthog isn’t really doing it for me. Of course, the original made a ton of money at the box office, so there’s certainly an audience for these things.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 opens June 3, 2016.
