Nickelodeon Wrangles NINJA TURTLES

Nickelodeon is shelling out some serious green (yeah, there’s two there.  Deal with it) for the TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURLES.  What is serious green, you might ask?  How about $60 million for global rights to the property.  According to The Hollywood Reporter, that is exactly what Viacom’s Nickelodeon forked over to develop not only a new feature film starring the heroes in a half shell but a CG-animated TV series.

This is Nickelodeon’s first endeavor into franchise purchasing, and it seems likely the company will be looking more and more at this type of brand marketing for shows and feature film projects.

Says Cyma Zarghami, president of Nickelodeon:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shares a comedic sensibility with the Nickelodeon DNA, with added layers of action and fantasy that have kept this property an evergreen favorite with multiple generations of audiences.

Paramount, also under Viacom’s umbrella, would serve as distributor on the film.  Says Paramount president Adam Goodman:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a property that maintains a very passionate global fan base, is rich with opportunity for a tentpole movie and is exactly the right property for us to work together with Nickelodeon.

Both the feature film and the animated series are tentatively set for release in 2012.