Alan Ritchson Is a Ninja Turtle

The Michael Bay-produced reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has had a bumpy road to the big screen, but, despite all of the complaints from fans that Bay will somehow molest their childhood, the movie is moving forward at Paramount and Platinum Dunes. Jonathan Liebesman (Battle Los Angeles) is at the helm and Megan Fox has already been selected to play open-minded journalist and yellow-jacket enthusiast April O'Neil. And now we have our first member of the new turtle gang: Raphael.

Alan Ritchson will be playing Raphael, the hot-headed, red-masked ninja whose weapon of choice is a pair of sai. If that name sounds vaguely familiar but you don't recognize Ritchson, that's because he's a relative newcomer to the big screen. He's best recognized from the small screen, having played Aquaman on Smallville, but he's about to have a good year thanks to a prime role in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire as the hunky tribute Gloss.

The new Ninja Turtles will be using motion capture instead of bulky foam suits, which should hopefully let some of Ritchson's personality come through despite the fact that he'll be playing a mutant turtle who punches purse snatchers and eats pizza. He had a likeable, but smug, cockiness as Aquaman, so it's not hard to see why they'd give him Raphael. Now we just need to wait and hear about Michelangelo, Donatello and Leonardo.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1927097/news/1927097/

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