Nickelodeon Purchases Ninja Turtles for $60 Million

TMNT co-creator Peter Laird sold ALL of his intellectual property rights of his most famous creation to Viacom, more specifically: Nickelodeon, here’s an excerpt form the press release (Via newsarama: http://blog.newsarama.com/2009/10/22/nickelodeon-gets-the-turtles):

Nickelodeon to Develop New CG-Animated Television Series and Paramount Pictures to Develop Feature Film of Renowned Global Property

NEW YORK, Oct. 21 /PRNewswire/ — Furthering its mission to provide premium
content to its audiences, Nickelodeon–part of MTV Networks, a division of
Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B)–has acquired the global rights to the Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles from The Mirage Group and 4Kids Entertainment, Inc.
(NYSE: KDE). The acquisition provides Nickelodeon, the world’s number-one
entertainment brand for kids, global intellectual property rights to Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles, the hit television, film and video game property that
has delighted kids around the world for the last 25 years. The aggregate
purchase price for the transactions is approximately $60 million.

Nickelodeon also announced plans to develop a new CG-animated television
series based on the popular superhero franchise, anticipated to premiere in
2012. Additionally, in partnership with Viacom’s Paramount Pictures, a new
release of a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles feature film is also planned for
2012. Nickelodeon has also acquired all merchandising rights to Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles, and will continue to work with its original and long-standing
toy partner, Playmates Toys, which has been the creative force behind the
successful TMNT master toy program over the last two decades.

“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,” said
Cyma Zarghami, President, Nickelodeon/MTVN Kids and Family Group. “We are
extremely happy to have the opportunity to be able to focus on this property
and creatively re-introduce it to a new generation of kids.”

“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,” said Adam
Goodman, President, Paramount Pictures. . .

“We enjoyed our eight-year partnership with Mirage during which 4Kids and
Mirage re-launched the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise for a new
generation of kids around the world,” said Alfred Kahn, Chairman and CEO of
4Kids Entertainment, Inc. “We will also work with Mirage and Viacom so that
our Turtles’ licensees can be assured of a seamless transition.”

Considered one of the most popular kids’ television programs of the 1980s,
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a classic, global property created in 1984 by
Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. It first debuted as a successful comic book
series and then became a hit animated TV show, a live-action television
series, and later spawned four blockbuster theatrical releases. The property
also has translated into a significant consumer products business–with DVDs,
video games, toys and more–that has generated billions of dollars at retail.

Sweet! One of my most beloved franchises of all time just got picked up by a marketing powerhouse. Looks like this is just another golden Disney/Marvel deal where the publisher gets to keep doing what they want and the new boss opens up new and exciting marketing avenues that are both lucrative to the company and beneficial to long time fans.

Wait, turns out this is going to suck, unlike Disney, who just wants Marvel to continue making comics, “Tales of the TMNT” scribe Tristan Jones had this to say (Via newsarama:

http://blog.newsarama.com/2009/10/26/mirage-done-turtles-writer-tristan-jones-speaks/)

“Mirage Studios, Inc. will close on December 31, 2009 - so the current crew will become independent contractors on January 1 to get the final issues out. Mirage will continue to publish “Tales” until the May, 2010 issue - but as of now - that’s the end of the line. Peter did keep rights for Mirage to publish 18 TMNT comic books per year through the direct market, which would only be based on the current Mirage Universe stuff (eg: a continuation/conclusion to Volume 4).

While Peter did maintain the rights to do comic books, Mirage no longer has the rights to do trade paperbacks. So the “Mirage Universe” book solicited for December is canceled. What I’ve been told is that Mirage can only publish material between 32 and 48 pages long.

What could possibly happen is that say Nickelodeon/Viacom/Paramount/whoever decided to pick up the ball and run in a completely new direction with the Turtles, they’d be able to license that out to another company, and that company could potentially do anything they like, except publish anything that continues the currently established Mirage Universe, so any comics that would come from another company would be something completely new (what IDW is doing with Transformers and GI Joe is a pretty good example of the sort of thing that could be done).

Peter still owns Mirage, so there’s a chance that Mirage could continue publishing but there aren’t any solid plans for anything Turtle related yet (outside of what I just mentioned) or any new IP’s that I’m aware of.”

God. Damnit. Instead of having a bigger marketing/publishing forum, original TMNT comics will simply go away. Upon viewing ninjaturtles.com, it looks as though this is already in effect: Laird was selling several TMNT trade paperbacks, including a 600 page collected edition of the very first issues, and from what I gather from Jones, Nickelodeon can’t produce editions either. Lame.