‘Ninja Turtles’ Could Thrive at Box Office Despite ‘Barbenheimer’ Bonanza

If there’s any late summer film that might be able to find a foothold at the box office amidst the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon, it’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,” a film that marks the beginning of a greater investment in theatrical animation for Paramount Pictures.

Made on a reported $70 million budget and with Seth Rogen attached as a writer-producer, “Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” marks the start of a new incarnation of the quartet of pizza-loving reptile warriors who have been reinvented in various films, comics and TV series since Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman first imagined them for a 1984 one-off comic spoofing Marvel heroes like Daredevil and the X-Men.

This is the seventh time the Turtles have taken to the big screen, but none of their previous films have earned the critical praise “Mutant Mayhem” has earned. With 65 reviews logged, the film has a 97% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics giving a thumbs up to its vibrant, visually creative animation style and the chemistry between the four teen voice actors playing the Turtles.

Optimism is high at Paramount for “Mutant Mayhem,” so much so that the studio has already announced a sequel and streaming series, not just because of the reviews but because of where it is situated on the release slate.

There hasn’t been a major animated release in theaters since Pixar’s “Elemental” back in mid-June, and there won’t be another one until late September with fellow Paramount film “Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie” specifically targeting those with preschoolers.

So while families — along with everyone else — are turning out en masse to see “Barbie,” “Mutant Mayhem” should be able to use its status as a fresh, well-reviewed animated film to draw in parents and kids looking to spend a couple hours in an air-conditioned theater. It should especially draw in grade-school boys for whom the “Barbie” craze might not have as much pull.

Just as important is that $70 million price tag before marketing costs. With a release on Wednesday, “Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” is tracking for a 5-day opening of around $40 million, a result that should allow it to clear a break-even point considerably lower than many of the films that have released this summer.

Almost all of Hollywood’s studios this summer have seen at least one film fall short of their huge tentpole budgets, and Paramount is one of them with just $429 million grossed by “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.” More recently, “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning,” which grossed just $450 million after two weekends will fail to turn a theatrical profit against its $290 million budget as “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” stifled the momentum Cruise’s film had with its strong reviews.

Despite this, insiders at Paramount said the numbers for “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” are a sign to the studio that there’s still interest in that franchise. Why would they say that when the film has fallen so short of the $1 billion-plus totals earned by past “Transformers” films?

It’s because the next “Transformers” film will come from Paramount Animation, which is developing an animated Optimus Prime origin story called “Transformers: One.” While the project is not far enough in development to have a solid budget total, “Transformers: One” is expected to have a production spend closer to “Mutant Mayhem” than to the $200 million-plus totals of past live-action/CGI “Transformers” films.

While unannounced original films are in early development, the first few Paramount Animation titles set for release under studio CEO Brian Robbins and animation chief Ramsey Naito will be from franchises. Along with “Ninja Turtles” and “Transformers,” animated films based on “Spongebob Squarepants,” “The Smurfs” and “Avatar: The Last Airbender” are also in development.

As seen with DreamWorks and Illumination over at Universal, as well as Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” animation can provide a big box office return on investment if it brings a distinct visual style or humorous hook at less than half the budget of live action tentpoles. A $429 million global total wasn’t enough to make “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” theatrically profitable, but it would for “Mutant Mayhem.”

And as “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” and “Elemental” have demonstrated, word-of-mouth for a top-quality family film can spread for weeks and give it plenty of legs. That is what Paramount is counting on with “Ninja Turtles,” hoping it will become a unique animated offering for the late summer season.

Also opening on Friday is Warner Bros.’ “Meg 2: The Trench,” the sequel to the over-the-top 2018 monster film “The Meg” starring Jason Statham in a film about an enormous shark capable of devouring dozens of people in a single bite.

Released during an incredibly strong August for Warner Bros. that also included “Crazy Rich Asians,” “The Meg” grossed $530 million worldwide against a $130 million budget co-financed by China Media Capital.

Just five years later, “Meg 2” feels like a film from a bygone era as the bridge between the American and Chinese film industries has been almost entirely razed. But the sequel will try to appeal to audiences on both sides of the Pacific, with Statham returning with a new A-list Chinese co-star: Wu Jing, star of the wildly successful “Wolf Warrior” series and the $900 million-plus hit “The Battle at Lake Changjin.”

While “The Meg” opened to $45 million in North America, “Meg 2” is projected to earn slightly more than half that number this weekend at $23 million-$27 million. “Meg 2” is a co-production with Warner Bros. and CMC sharing the cost for its $139 million production budget, lowering the break-even point as “Meg 2” tries to win over younger male audiences with tongue-in-cheek B-movie charm.

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