There are a few things we have known since May about the upcoming live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie thanks to 300/Superman Returns producer Scott Mednick. It will definitely be live-action, they’re using the original Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird comics as a starting point (citing them as,“the best source material”), and they’re trying to bring a whole new generation into the Turtles universe.

Mednick has now revealed the new movie will feature the origin of our favorite pizza loving Turtles.

Mednick recently spoke to Mania about the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, specifically about such things as bringing a new audience up to speed with the TMNT universe and how the Turtles will look in the live-action/CGI movie. Here’s some of what he had to say:

We are intent on re-telling the origin, as it was in Batman, as it was in Superman, frankly as it was in Spider-Man, to tell the origin story. We have an entire new generation of fans who really don’t know the full back story.

You have a much more sophisticated audience [nowadays]. Even the younger kids are more sophisticated by the information they receive. Things have become a little darker and a little edgier, just in general. Certainly as filmmakers the technology has come so far. It really gives us an opportunity to revisit the material and come at it, hopefully, in a new dramatic way, from a filmmaking standpoint, and honor the old, and bring in the new.

We want the Turtles to be real. We want them to be in the movie, not Gollumed… We’re excited about the opportunity to use all of these new technologies to give the experience that you really believe the turtles are real, they’re teenagers, they have great personalities, not guys in suits.

For the rest of what Mednick had to say about the live action Ninja Turtles movie - which includes comparisons between it and the upcoming Where The Wild Things Are - check out the story at Mania.

The film is currently in the early development stages (no writer or director attached yet) and doesn’t have a release date yet.

Personally, I’m excited about this idea. I love origin stories and find them to be the most compelling part of most franchises. I was also not a big fan of the CGI TMNT film, having grown up with the live action versions. Yes, there are advantages to CGI and you can do things that you can’t with live action but you lose something in the transition.

What do YOU think?