Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990 film)

Television reporter April O'Neil, investigating a crime wave terrorizing New York City, is attacked by thieves, but is saved by an unseen group of vigilantes, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael. However, Raphael lost a sai in the fight, which April recovered. The turtles return to their hidden lair in the sewer, where their adoptive father, a rat named Splinter, advises them to continue practicing the art of ninjutsu. Visiting the surface, Raph watches Critters, only to come to blows with fellow vigilante Casey Jones, and is counseled by Splinter. Charles Pennington, April's supervisor at Channel 3 News, struggles to control his delinquent son Danny, who has been recruited with other troubled teenagers to help the mysterious ninja Foot Clan in their wave of thefts. April suspects the Foot are responsible for the crime spree, raising the ire of Police Chief Sterns, while Shredder, leader of the Foot, sends his soldiers after April. Raph defeats them and brings the unconscious April to the turtles' lair, unknowingly followed by a Foot soldier. Splinter explains to April that he and the turtles were mutated into intelligent, anthropomorphic creatures by a mysterious chemical. After escorting April home and bonding over their love of pizza, the turtles return to find their lair ransacked and Splinter kidnapped, and return to April's apartment. Danny is arrested, which Sterns uses to pressure Charles, who urges April to drop her investigation. Glimpsing the turtles hiding at April's apartment, Danny informs Shredder at the Foot's hideout, where Splinter is being held prisoner. Back at April's place, Raph argues with Leo over his leadership, and is ambushed on the rooftops by the Foot and beaten unconscious. Casey witnesses this and aids the turtles in fighting off the Foot and escape the burning building with April, who is fired by Charles in a phone message. Danny seeks counsel from the captive Splinter, and flees the Foot Clan. The turtles retreat to April's rundown family farm upstate, where she bonds with Casey as Raph recovers. Leo receives a vision of Splinter and assembles the other turtles to contact him through astral projection. Splinter delivers his final lesson, inspiring the turtles to return to the city. The turtles find Danny hiding in their lair, and Casey follows him to the Foot’s hideout. Splinter tells Danny that as an ordinary pet in Japan, he learned ninjutsu from watching his master, the ninja Hamato Yoshi. To escape conflict with his rival, Oroku Saki, over the love of a woman, Tang Shen, Yoshi fled with Shen to New York, where they were killed by a vengeful Saki. Splinter suggests Saki is linked to the Foot, while Shredder finds Danny and realizes that the turtles have returned, ordering Splinter to be killed. Casey and Danny free Splinter and defeat Shredder's lieutenant Tatsu, before convincing the remaining Foot members that they have been manipulated by Shredder. The turtles repel the Foot from their lair and onto the streets, before confronting the spear-wielding Shredder on a rooftop. After a fierce battle, Shredder claims that Splinter is dead, overpowering an infuriated Leo and disarming the turtles. Before Shredder can kill Leo, Splinter appears and identifies him as Oroku Saki, who in turn recognizes Splinter as Yoshi's pet rat. Shredder charges Splinter, who snares his spear with Mikey's nunchaku, leaving Shredder dangling over the roof's edge. Shredder makes a final attempt to kill Splinter with a thrown tanto, but Splinter drops him into a garbage truck below. Casey "accidentally" activates the truck's compactor, crushing Shredder. The police arrive to arrest the Foot soldiers, and recover the stolen goods from their hideout. The Channel 3 news crew arrives as well to cover the story, and Danny is reunited with Charles, who gives April her job back with major benefits. April and Casey share a kiss, while the turtles celebrate their victory with Splinter. ==Cast==

• Judith Hoag as April O'Neil: A young reporter for Channel 3 News. • Elias Koteas as Casey Jones: A streetwise vigilante and former ice hockey player. • Raymond Serra as Chief Sterns: The chief of the New York City Police Department. • Michael Turney as Danny Pennington: A delinquent youth and prospect for the Foot Clan. • James Saito / David McCharen as The Shredder: The leader of the Foot Clan, a network of runaways-turned-thieves. • Jay Patterson as Charles Pennington: April's supervisor at Channel 3 News and Danny's father. • Toshishiro Obata / Michael McConnohie as Tatsu: Shredder's second-in-command. • Josh Pais as Raphael: The strong and angry member of the Turtles. Peter Laird said in the 2014 Turtle Power documentary that he politely declined the offer as he was not comfortable with cameos in general. ==Production==

Pre-production In the mid-1980s, creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird were pitched a concept of a live-action film adaptation by Roger Corman for his studio New World Pictures. The film was to have starred comedians Sam Kinison, Gallagher, Bobcat Goldthwait and Billy Crystal in makeup as the turtles. Gallagher's then-manager, Gary Propper, happened to see an issue of the original comic book while on tour in Detroit, and proposed that a film adaptation be made. The script is based mainly on the early Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics, including the stories of the turtles' origins, rooftop battle, sojourn to the farmhouse, and battle with Shredder. Elements were taken from the 1980s animated series, such as the Turtles' colored bandanas and love of pizza, elements of Michelangelo's character, and April O'Neil as a television reporter instead of a lab assistant. Filming and post-production The film's budget was $13.5 million. Filming in North Carolina took place at the North Carolina Film Studios, where New York rooftop sets were created. Production designer Roy Forge Smith and his art director, Gary Wissner, went to New York City four months prior to filming and took still photographs of rooftops and other various locations. While in NYC, Smith and Wissner were allowed to explore an abandoned Brooklyn subway line, as they could not gain access to a city sewer, but the structure of the subway had the same principle as a sewer. They also went to a water tunnel which had large pipes running through it. Many major studios, such as Walt Disney Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Universal Pictures, MGM/UA, Orion Pictures, 20th Century Fox (who later would distribute the sequels internationally), Paramount Pictures (whose parent company Viacom would acquire the TMNT property in 2009), and Warner Bros. Pictures turned down the film for distribution; they were worried that despite the popularity of the cartoon and the toy line, the film could potentially be a box office disappointment, like Masters of the Universe was just a couple years prior. Costume design The turtle costumes were created by Jim Henson's Creature Shop in London. They were produced as molds to cast the whole body in foam rubber latex. The work at the Creature Shop was completed within 18 weeks. ==Music==

Marketing Live Entertainment Inc. announced that the film would go to VHS via its Family Home Entertainment label on October 4, 1990. The suggested price was $24.99 per cassette. Pizza Hut engaged in a $20 million marketing campaign tied into the film (despite the fact that Domino's Pizza was used as product placement in the film itself). Items included advertising in print, radio and television, and several rebate coupons. Alternate versions The UK version removed Eastern fighting weapons like the nunchaku, using alternate shots of Michaelangelo in order to conceal his nunchaku weapon, or omitting the show-off duel between Michaelangelo and a member of the Foot clan. Also, the scene of Shredder in the garbage shred was heavily edited and the Turtle Power song was edited to change the word 'ninja' to 'hero' as per the UK television series. The unedited version was released on DVD in 2004 in the UK. Home media On October 4, 1990, the film was released on VHS and reached No. 4 in the home video market. On August 11, 2009, the film was included in a special 25th anniversary box set (commemorating the original comic book), released to both DVD and Blu-ray formats. It also contained Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, and the animated release, TMNT (2007). No additional features, other than theatrical trailers, were included. In Germany, a "Special Edition" was released on March 12, 2010, with additional features, including an audio commentary by director Steve Barron, an alternate ending, and alternate takes from the original German release, where Michelangelo's nunchaku had been edited out. Warner Home Video released the film along with Secret of the Ooze and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III as part of a "Triple Feature" on Blu-ray in June 2012, minus the fourth film TMNT. Warner Home Video released the film separately on Blu-ray on December 18. In the UK, Medium Rare released the film along with its sequels in a 3 DVD set on 28 October 2013. In December 2025, Arrow Video released the film on both 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray and Blu-ray formats, along with Secret of the Ooze and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, in the UK, the US and Canada. ==Reception==

Box office The film opened in the United States on March 30, 1990, and was number one at the box office over the weekend, grossing more than $25 million, the biggest opening weekend an independent film had ever had up to that time. It went on to gross in its opening week, making it the second biggest US opening ever up until then (after 1989's Batman). The film turned out to be a huge success at the box office, eventually making over $135 million in North America, and over $66 million outside North America, for a worldwide total of over $200 million, making it the ninth highest-grossing film of 1990 worldwide. The film was also nominated for awards by The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. During its 2025 theatrical re-release, the film made $3.3 million during its first week. Its success led to Fathom Events extending the re-release for an additional week and a re-release for the sequel Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze which released in March 2026. Critical response On the film's initial release, Roger Ebert gave 2.5 out of 4 stars and concluded it to be "nowhere near as bad as it might have been, and probably is the best possible Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie. It supplies, in other words, more or less what Turtle fans will expect". Ebert singled out the production design, which he described as a "low-rent version of Batman or Metropolis." Janet Maslin of The New York Times criticized the cinematography, stating that it was so "poorly photographed that the red-masked turtle looks almost exactly like the orange-masked one". Variety, the New York Times, and the Monthly Film Bulletin all noted the Asian villains of the film; Variety described "overtones of racism in its use of Oriental villains", while Maslin stated "the story's villainous types are Asian, and the film plays the yellow-peril aspects of this to the hilt". Lloyd Bradley of Empire gave the film four out of five stars, stating: "A well-rounded, unpretentious, very funny, knockabout adventure – subtly blended so that it's fun for all the family". Owen Gleiberman, writing for Entertainment Weekly, gave an F rating, finding that none of the four turtles or Splinter had any personality, but felt that a young audience might enjoy the film, noting he might have "gone for it too had I been raised on Nintendo games and the robotic animation that passes for entertainment on today's Saturday-morning TV". Entertainment Weekly and The New York Times praised the work of Jim Henson's Creature Shop, with Maslin stating "without which there would have been no film at all". As of 2025, the film has an approval rating of 46% on Rotten Tomatoes based on reviews from 57 critics and an average rating of 5.10/10. The website's consensus states, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is exactly as advertised: one-liners, brawls, and general silliness. Good for the young at heart, irritating for everyone else". On Metacritic, it has a score of 51 based on reviews from 21 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Turtles co-creator Peter Laird praised the film in the 2014 documentary Turtle Power: The Definitive History of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles saying, "I cannot sit here and honestly say there is anything I would change about [the movie] to make them better." Kevin Eastman went on to say in 2022 that this film will always be the best Turtles film adaptation. ==Sequels==

A second film, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, was released in 1991. With a rushed production and a lighter tone, it received weaker reviews and was less successful at the box office. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993) was aimed at the Japanese market, the largest foreign market for US films at the time, but failed to see release there and had weaker reviews and sales. ==Notes==