Paramount and Nickelodeon Animation's Ramsey Naito on the Subway Grit that Inspired 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' and Sending 'SpongeBob SquarePants' Beyond Bikini Bottom

It seemed like the end of the road for the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles".

The popular children's franchise had inspired half a dozen films of diminishing quality, with the live- 2016 action adventure "Out of the Shadows" suffering the kind of scathing reviews and poor box office returns that derail a string of movies.

But Paramount and Nickelodeon CEO Brian Robbins and Nickelodeon Animation and Paramount Animation President Ramsey Naito had a quirky idea for how they could make turtles cool again.

It involved bringing in Seth Rogen and his producing partner Evan Goldberg, the duo behind " Superbad" and "This is the End," to make the characters look like teenagers. It didn't matter that the duo's primary experience with animation, the highly rated "Sausage Party," was aimed at voting-age moviegoers and no to tweens who are the biggest fans of Donatello, Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael. .

"It was about who is the coolest person we could find to contribute something different, so it didn't feel like a knockoff of what had gone before?" Naito recalls. "We needed someone to push this franchise forward with multiple movies and shows. clear it was Seth Rogen."

Robbins quickly called Rogen and found he had been a fan of the show since he was a child. Before the two Paramount execs could take their speech to the comic strip, he was finishing their sentences and selling them on his plans for the show.

On August 2, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" hits theaters and the studio is so optimistic that it is already developing a sequel and two seasons of a streaming spin-off show. But those are just some of the projects Naito, an Oscar-nominated producer of "Boss Baby," has been planning since joining Nickelodeon in 2018. She took over at Paramount Animation three years later. In his roles, Naito breathed new life into children and family staples like "The Smurfs," as well as producing "Transformers One," an animated spin-off of the live-action movies.

Naito spoke to Variety about his work with Rogen and Goldberg, about his plans to expand the cuddly "PAW Patrol" cinematic universe and the challenges of creating animated films that appeal to children, as well as their parents.

You were at Nickelodeon in the 1990s. Why did you decide to come back?

I had been working in animation for a long time, and when I heard Brian was going back to Nickelodeon, I was so excited because he was one of the designers who really helped define the brand. When he asked me to join him, I jumped at the chance. When we started, we were in production on about nine animation projects. Cut to today and we're in production on nearly 70 across streaming, film and TV. Brian told me to focus on making Nickelodeon a world-class studio where we can tell great stories and be home to top talent. And that was my guide.

Seth Rogen said he was worried the turtle design was too radical and edgy. Were there similar concerns at Paramount and Nickelodeon?

No. We felt like the roots of the Turtles had that essence of subway sand and graffiti that you used to see in New York. And we wanted some of that teenage testosterone – that kind of skateboarding flair. We wanted to pay homage to the original comic. But one of the film's earliest references was one of those teenage scribbles that people made in class back when you took notes in three-hole binders. People don't really use them anymore, but old people know what I'm talking about. Ultimately, what Seth and Evan and [director] Jeff Rowe have created is an animated masterpiece.

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