9 Films That Changed Due To Fan Backlash
2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
If producer Michael Bay had seen his original plan for 2014's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot through to completion, then the titular group of ninjas wouldn't have been "mutants" at all: they would have been aliens.
When news of this change to the Turtles' origin first broke, the fan backlash was both immediate, and ferocious, and even figures like Robbie Rist - who voiced Michelangelo in the '90s Ninja Turtles movies - were part of the group who lashed out against Bay, with Rist accusing the producer of "sodomizing" the TMNT brand.
Bay soon went on damage control duties, posting a short response to the negative feedback on his website. But coming from the man who had already ruined Transformers for many fans, his words did very little to calm the situation down.
"The characters you all remember are exactly the same, and yes they still act like teenagers. Everything you remember, why you liked the characters, is in the movie. Everyone on this team cares about the fans. Just give them a chance."
Soon after, an early version of the script leaked online, which somehow made fans even angrier. This story featured massive, seemingly needless changes to traditional TMNT lore - including the fact that the Turtles came from another dimension full of turtle warriors, and that Shredder was an alien who could grow blades from his body - which pretty much nobody liked.
While all this was going on, production on the reboot had been officially shut down, with Paramount citing script issues as the reason: the backlash had forced them back to the drawing board. When things got underway again in early 2013, Bay stated that the Turtles were no longer aliens, and by all accounts, the film seemed to be going with a more recognisable TMNT movie. And that's exactly what we got.