When William Fichtner joined the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot movie, his role was considered top secret. He did however tease that he is playing a pivotal character in TMNT canon, sparking a fan frenzy of speculation that he would in fact be playing the Turtles’ archenemy, Shredder. It looks like the wall of secrecy didn’t last in light of all of that fan-prodding, as Fichtner has finally just confessed; Yes, he is playing Shredder in the new movie!
It was one of the worst kept cinematic secrets in recent memory anyway, as an early draft leak of the script confirmed that Shredder was in the movie, albeit heavily re-tooled. This is back when the Turtles were apparently originally planned to be of alien origin (an idea that’s since been dropped or re-tooled, according to producer, Michael Bay) with Shredder then being a military goon called ‘Colonel Schrader’. Hurk, hurk, get it?
With re-working to several plot elements no doubt being done for the reboot, one has to wonder if Shredder will be changed for the new movie as well. In the traditional TMNT mythos, Shredder is a Japanese master ninja who serves as the leader of the Foot Clan, a group of evil ninjas that routinely cause trouble for the Turtles’ stomping grounds of New York City. He has a lengthy backstory from his time in Japan, where he was known by his birth name, Oroku Saki, but it’s likely that much of this will be cut out of the upcoming reboot.
On this note, one thing that’s immediately apparent is that Fichtner is obviously not Japanese in the slightest. This likely means that some of Shredder’s re-worked military backstory could still be in effect in the reboot. It’s not inconceivable that he may still be trained in ninjitsu and still lead the Foot Clan, but it seems like Shredder’s Japanese origin story from the traditional mythos is indeed largely being thrown out for the new movie. We’ll see how fans react to the casting both leading up to and during the release of the movie.
Despite suffering an indefinite delay from its original Christmas 2013 release date to re-work several story elements, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot movie will be coming to the big screen on June 6th, 2014. We’ll see how Fichtner’s casting and the final product pans out at that point. Regardless however, Eggplante will be shelling out all of your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles news, as it surfs to us!
