Justin Runfola, a character design and visual development artist on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, shared some concept art for the film showing off the nefarious Shredder.
Runfola posted on Twitter, “Since the Film has been out for about a month, safe to say we’ve all seen it! Time to share all my shredder concepts! I was very happy and appreciative to be able to throw in some concepts for our ol’ pal oroku saki.”
Shredder’s Role in TMNT: Mutant Mayhem, Explained
Shredder, who often serves as the main antagonist to Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo in past Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stories, appears during Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem’s post-credit scene. In the scene, it’s revealed Cynthia Utrom (voiced by Maya Rudolph), the villainous head of Techno Cosmic Research Institute (TRCI), has recruited Shredder to capture the four turtles after their previous plans to do so were thwarted by Splinter (voiced by Jackie Chan).
Speaking with the Hollywood Reporter, director Jeff Rowe previously compared the moment to the end of Batman Begins, which includes a Joker tease setting up Heath Ledger’s role in The Dark Knight.
“That was our whole argument,” Rowe said. “We were like, ‘Look, if we do it here, then the next movie can make a billion dollars. Don’t we all want a billion dollars?’ The sales-y argument and the story argument was that Shredder is a big character when he’s on screen. He demands a lot of presence, and he takes up so much space in the story. So it was too much space in a movie where we’re also trying to reintroduce a new generation of Turtles and get audiences on board with this iteration.”
Written by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Rowe, Dan Hernandez, and Ben Samit, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is playing in theaters in the United States now.
