My Turtles Screenplay Pitch

Mr_Toitle

Alright, I've decided to share with the rest of the forum my very own screenplay of these characters. Before you read it however, I want to make a couple of bullet points.

This is a STANDALONE screenplay which is why there's no mention of the Foot Clan anywhere in here
There's no origin retold for the millionth time
At this specific time, this is still a Fan-Made project, however I have contacted Kevin's email, so we'll see what happens in the near future
Last thing I want to mention is to keep the screenplay to yourselves right now due to what I said above. I don't want anyone posting it online or making a video on it; we got that clear?
One last point I forgot to make is if you have anything you wanna ask after you're done reading, I'll be able to answer your questions.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HyQwCjK8EKPdzokMkYfzeYkd1YynMOKo/view?usp=drivesdk

Tatoruzu

Your document is set to private!

Mr_Toitle

Tatoruzu Whoops! Just fixed it. You should be able to access it now.

Tatoruzu

Wow, 103 pages, this is pretty impressive! But it'll take some time to read through 😁

Mr_Toitle

Tatoruzu Honestly, I didn't think I was gonna go that far. It's just that the way the story was structured led to that.

Mr_Toitle

Tatoruzu How far have you gotten in? Or have you finished reading it?

Tatoruzu

Mr_Toitle Unfortunately, haven't had a chance yet. Finishing up some editing for Saturday's upload but I'll have the weekend to give it a proper look.

Mr_Toitle

Tatoruzu Opinion? What were your personal highs or lows? I appreciate any honest answer as I do intend to write another draft and this is sort of like a test anyway.

Mr_Toitle

My casting choices include at the moment:
Grace Caroline Curry as April O'Neil
John Goodman as Mayor Sullivan

Tatoruzu

Mr_Toitle Still working through it, but I like the inclusion of Stockman so far.

Tatoruzu

Overall, it seems pretty good. Admittedly, I can't provide any more detailed feedback because I'm not sure how a screenplay like this would translate on screen.

I definitely think ditching the origin story was the right move.

As I said before, I like the inclusion of Stockman. But I'm wondering if the expanded Stockman story came at the sacrifice of the turtles taking the center stage. It just feels like something is missing from the turtles' side of this story like a more dramatic overarching conflict.

Mr_Toitle

Tatoruzu Fair feedback. With that said, you don't think there were enough Turtle scenes? I mean, the second half is dominated by them all the way to the final sequence. But, I'll take into consideration of what you said about there being a more overarching conflict.

I think something I should've may clearer was the theme of the screenplay, which is ultimately a tale of respect between your brothers, associates, etc.

Tatoruzu

Mr_Toitle I do think the second half definitely had enough of the turtles and the final fight was really compelling. I think the reason why it feels off is that the scenes with the turtles in the first half didn't really feel like they were building up to anything, but maybe there was some subtlety in those scenes that flew over my head.

Mr_Toitle

Tatoruzu As I said, it's a first draft/ test draft. I was really trying to see how to pace and structure the screenplay, and I'll admit after page 12, I didn't know where to go with the story, which is why I can understand your criticism during the first half.

However, now that I got the structure down of the whole screenplay, I can take those criticisms and improve in my second draft; which I will definitely be writing an outline this time. Lesson learned kids, never write a screenplay before outlining it first, lol.

Tatoruzu

(And of course, these are just nitpicks to an overall good story)

Mr_Toitle

Here's a couple of fun facts about some of my original plans for my (Fan-Made) screenplay.

Hun and Baxter were originally going to team up with the Purple Dragon gang being a more major focus; Casey Jones was also included in this. However, It was a bit much to juggle around that many characters and give them all proper page time. So, Hun and Casey ultimately had to be axed - I didn't really have a structure to the script.
I remember delving into the Yoshi, Shen, and Nagi stuff in another of my treatments. Though, I quickly nixed this as I wanted to just focus on one plot (I. E. Baxter and his Mousers) at a time.
Right before I started this draft, I thought about just having the focus on the Turtles (and Splinter) with The Rat King as the main antagonist this time. However, I couldn't come up with a satisfying story/ reasoning enough for him to come to New York. Ultimately, I just went back to Stockman as I think I was bit more invested in him being the main antagonist in my draft.

Tatoruzu

Mr_Toitle

I thought about just having the focus on the Turtles (and Splinter) with The Rat King as the main antagonist this time

A movie with the Rat King would be pretty nice

Tyron_Leung

Mr_Toitle

Why not as a horror?

Mr_Toitle

Tatoruzu

A movie with the Rat King would be pretty nice

And cheap too.

Mr_Toitle

Tyron_Leung Do you mean The Rat King? If so, then yeah, I could see him being a horror/slasher esque anti-villain of sorts (since he wasn't THAT evil in the Mirage comics) in a movie. However, I think Rat King needs something to bounce off or else it's just going to be a lot of dragging for an 1/2.

I know people mention Baxter for this, but meh. I don't buy it. There's nothing to go off except the whole "Mouser eating rats that conveniently connect to the Rat King". The Rat King is supposed to be this delusional man who takes up multiple monikers to try and scare off intruders of his home. Later, he becomes a mystical savant of sorts. I don't think people realize how contrived this would take to make it work in a movie.

Personally, Rat King shouldn't even be a antagonistic force to the Turtles specifically. I would like to see his role be inspired by his City at War appearances.

Tatoruzu

Mr_Toitle Honestly, I think the idea of a slasher sort of movie involving The Rat King could be neat. It could essentially be a more fleshed out adaptation of his debut in Tales of the TMNT. It wouldn't even need to touch on the mystical stuff introduced later (potential sequel material?).

If I were being extremely ambitious and envisioning a TMNT "cinematic universe," each villain would have their own movie dedicated to them, and then they'd kind of tie together for big multi-part movie events like a 3-part Return to New York, 3-part City at War, etc.

But yeah, probably way too ambitious to begin with.