‘It didn’t feel organic’: ‘Mutant Mayhem’ director explains why Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles don’t face off with their greatest adversary

Now that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is in theaters some longtime fans of the series might wonder why the team’s most famous arch-nemesis is not in the movie. It turns out, co-director Jeff Rowe has a good explanation for that. 

The film — which was also co-directed by Kyler Spears and written by Rowe, Seth Rogen, and Evan Goldberg — has a number of colorful characters but none of them is the iconic metal mask-wearing Shredder from past movies and shows in the franchise. 

Since Mutant Mayhem truly emphasizes the “teenage” elements of the turtle ninja group, Rowe said it was difficult to find a villain who could be relatable to a bunch of kids. Of course, he did answer in the affirmative whether an earlier draft of the movie had Shredder in it, as he explained to Polygon: 

“Absolutely. Shredder? That was our first impulse; ‘OK, yeah, the villain is Shredder, it’s got to be Shredder.’ And then we were like, ‘Well, who is the character of Shredder and how does he relate to these kids?’ And it’s like, ‘Well, he’s… an adult? Why is he crossing paths with the team?’ It was just so hard to write. It didn’t feel organic.”

After trying to work in Baxter Stockman as a co-antagonist alongside Shredder, in order to generate more of a connection to the team, Rowe eventually realized the script would work better by dropping Shredder entirely. What’s more, they decided to slightly remix Baxter’s story by separating the scientist — played by Giancarlo Esposito — from the human fly mutant he traditionally turns into, this time by introducing Ice Cube’s Superfly instead.

“We ultimately found ourselves needing to make the villain a mutant, like the turtles — someone that could relate to them over that. Someone who had a really similar backstory to them, where they also felt alone and alienated and had this mistrust of humans. That is what led us to Superfly, and once we had that, and that started connecting, everything else had to drop out to support that.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean Shredder will never appear in this new franchise at all. Indeed, now that Paramount Plus already has plans for a Mutant Mayhem sequel and spinoff TV show, it’s practically an inevitability at this point.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem — which we gave respectable praise in our own review — is currently in theaters.