USA Today has reported that Sarah Michelle Gellar (The Grudge, Buffy The Vampire Slayer), Fantastitc Four‘s Chris Evans and Memoirs of a Geisha star Zhang Ziyi have joined the voice cast of TMNT, the upcoming CG-animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles feature film produced by and Imagi Animation Studios, and distributed by Warner Bros. and The Weinstein Co. Also lending their voices to the cast are Patrick Stewart (X-Men: The Last Stand, Star Trek: The Next Generation) and filmmaker Kevin Smith.
Gellar will voice the role of April, the human researcher who looks out for Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael as they use their martial arts skills to take on evil forces. Evans will provide the voice of Casey Jones, April’s love interest, while Ziyi takes on the role of Karai, a villainess who commands a ruthless band of ninjas. As previously announced, Stewart will be heard as Max Winters, a tech industrialist who plots to take over the world with his army of ancient monsters. Smith, director of such films as Clerks and Dogma, will put in a cameo as a cook in a greasy-spoon.
The new movie is being directed by animator/comic-book artist Kevin Munroe from a screenplay he wrote with help from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator Peter Laird, who serves as exec producer along with Francis Kao, Gary Richardson and Frederick U. Fierst. Thomas K. Gray and Galen Walker are producing the PG-rated feature toon, which, like Warner Bros.’ Superman Returns, picks up after the second live-action movie, but also tips its hat to the animated series as well.
Laird and Kevin Eastman launched the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles property in 1984 with a 40-page, black-and-white comic book. Three live-action feature films and an animated series soon followed. After laying low for several years, the toxically transformed terrapins made their return to television in February of 2003 on Fox’s 4Kids TV block in the U.S. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’Fast Forward, a new series that takes the characters 99 years into the future, joined the 4Kids TV lineup this fall.
TMNT is scheduled to arrive in theaters on March 23. To see the trailer for the movie, go to tmnt.warnerbros.com
Leave a Reply