Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Reboot Premier at San Diego Comic-Con

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise is rebooting with a new television series, comic books, and movie that will preview to an audience at the San Diego Comic-Con this July.

Nickelodeon has finally completed its cast for their reboot of the television series with Sean Astin (Lord of the Rings) to voice Raphael. The new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show is to be released Fall 2012.

Astin expressed his excitement over his new role in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, stating, “[Raphael’s] everybody‘s favorite Ninja Turtle. Raphael’s the coolest, no question about it. Ask anybody.”

The voices for the other infamous crime fighting turtles include Jason Biggs (American Pie) as Leonardo, Greg Cipes (Teen Titans) as Michelangelo, and Rob Paulsen (Animaniacs) as Donatello. Paulsen was the voice for Raphael in the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series, but has since passed the torch to Astin. The series will be executive produced by Ciro Nieli (The Avengers and Transformers animated series), Joshua Sternin (Rio and That 70s Show) and Jeffrey Ventimilia (Rio and That 70s show).

“The crazy thing is that Rob Paulsen played Raphael in the original series, and now he’s playing Donatello and I’m playing Raphael,” Astin told Entertainment Weekly. “[At the recording session] I was looking at him, like, ‘Am I doing this right?’ ”

Rumors of a movie remake from Paramount Pictures were circulating last year, however the first murmurs of progress since have just now slipped. The motion picture company has hired Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec to rewrite the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles script, according to MTV. The writing duo is known best for their script Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. The film is going to be produced by Michael Bay, Brad Fuller and Andrew Form, though no director has been announced. The movie, which will feature live action and CGI effects, was originally intended to be released in 2012 though no date has been officially set, according to MTV.

In the meantime however, IDW Publishing and Nickelodeon will be releasing a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book series this August. The co-creator of the TMNT will help the creative team on its endeavor to recreate the Turtles’ adventures featuring a new ally cat villain named “Old Hob.”

Select Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fans attending the San Diego Comic-Con in July will be given exclusive access to new never-before-seen content, as well as meet special guests who are working on the recreation, according to PR Newswire.

This article was originally published on AllMediaNY.com