10 Iconic Characters Without A Single Great Movie

9. The Turtles

In stark contrast to Mickey Mouse, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have had plenty of opportunities to impress on the big screen. They've had one animated feature, five live action features and three more planned projects that were greenlit but then cancelled. And yet none of them have managed to match the promise of the comics and the cartoons that turned the Turtles into one of the heavyweight kids brands of the 1990s.

The problem with the movies is they've never got the tone right. The best way to sell the Turtles isn't to go gritty or to Michael Bay everything up and give them annoying teenage attitudes (despite that being part of the cartoons) clearly, but that's what film-makers keep aiming to do. They keep assuming that fans will accept bad scripts and lowest-common-denominator silliness simply because the characters are mutant turtles and a rat.

The key to a great film would be approaching the material with the same affection and awareness that Ryan Reynolds did for Deadpool. So they really just need a massive fan to save them.