Paramount Pictures is teaming with Michael Bay and Bay’s Platinum Dunes Production Company to produce a new live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film.  The idea is to reboot the live action TMNT franchise, which New Line inaugurated in 1990.  Bay will potentially be responsible for two key Paramount franchises, the Transformers, and now the Turtles, which Paramount’s sister company Nickelodeon acquired last October (see “Nick Buys TMNT”).

According to Deadline Hollywood, Bay and his team will be meeting with writers over the next few weeks to lay the foundation for the rebooting of the franchise.  New Line produced a trilogy of live action TMNT movies in the early 1990s with initially spectacular, but steadily diminishing returns.  The initial 1990 film, which was produced for $13.5 million, earned $135.2 million at the box office, while the 1991 sequel TMNT 2, which cost $25 million, brought in $78.6 million, and the final movie in the trilogy, which cost $21 million, earned just $42.5 million.