Paramount‘s live-action R-rated film adaptation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin isn’t as dead as fans have been led to believe.
In April 2024, an R-rated The Last Ronin movie was announced by Paramount, with Tyler Burton Smith writing the screenplay and Ilya Naishuller in talks to direct. The movie was set to adapt the five-issue comic book miniseries of the same name, which is set in an alternative future and follows the last remaining turtle as he seeks to avenge the death of his brothers by killing the grandson of their former nemesis, the Shredder.
However, in November 2025, it was reported that The Last Ronin movie had been put on hold at Paramount in favor of a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot that skewed more family-friendly. While many fans took that to mean that the movie had been canceled for good, The Last Ronin co-writers Kevin Eastman and Tom Waltz suggested otherwise during a recent chat with Entertainment Weekly.
TMNT: The Last Ronin may not be as dead as fans think
“I don’t think the movie’s off the table. I think it’s just delayed,” said Eastman. “Speaking with all the folks at Viacom and Paramount and Nickelodeon who love the Turtles and really have done a fantastic job, whether it be the 2012 series to Mutant Mayhem, I don’t think it will not happen.”
Eastman continued, “I think it will happen. One of the things that anybody I’ve talked to at the companies, they know the fans love and support all things Last Ronin, as much as another group of fans love everything Point Grey [Pictures, production company], Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, and everybody has done with the whole Mutant Mayhem series. We’re not disheartened at all.”
Eastman’s positive Last Ronin update comes roughly a week after actor Judith Hoag revealed that she had been approached by Paramount to reprise her role as April O’Neil from the first live-action TMNT for The Last Ronin.
“Yes, I’ve been approached, and I’d be happy. It would be a great bookend for me. And maybe that happens and maybe it doesn’t. We’ll see,” she shared at Roanoke’s Big Lick Comic-Con.
Hoag being approached to return as April in TMNT: The Last Ronin strongly suggests that the R-rated movie was going to serve as a legacy sequel to the original live-action TMNT movies, which were released between 1990 and 1993.
As fans wait for further updates on Paramount’s The Last Ronin movie, they can head to their local comic book shop to read the “Roninverse” in print.
