Seth Rogen gives new insight into tapping into personal nostalgia and love for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when crafting the new animated movie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics debuted in 1984, and the franchise grew to include toys, animation, video games, and eventually live-action films. It will be the first animated movie in the franchise since TMNT and will be an origin story rebooting the films.

He breaks down the importance of personal nostalgia and how adaptations have evolved over time. Rogen also explains how casting teenage actors as the turtles brings a unique feeling to the animated movie:

“I think it’s putting a lot of thought into making a better version of it, [and] even then, people are projecting [what] it’s going to be and at the same time giving them everything that they hope it’s going to have. And I think that’s something that, honestly, we’ve gotten better at over the years, and I’ve seen a lot of friends do it, and I’ve been a part of it a few times. I think maybe early on our instincts maybe [were], “Let’s subvert it; let’s make it really different.” And I think you do have to create something that’s original, exciting, and creatively unique, but at the same time, it has to give people what they’re really hoping they get from this stuff. With Ninja Turtles, it was really trying to honor everything I always loved about it [while] trying to infuse something new and exciting into it. And luckily for us, no one had ever used actual teenagers before, and something very intuitive became something that really opened up our version; it feels like it makes it feel very unique. Things like that, I think, are exciting ways to get into this stuff.”

Read more of the interview on ScreenRant.