While the sequel to 2023’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem will not hit theaters until 2027, fans will get to see their favorite heroes in a half-shell this holiday season in a new short film. Variety confirmed that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Chrome Alone 2: Lost in New Jersey is an upcoming short film that will play in theaters before The SpongeBob Movie: The Search for SquarePants, which opens in theaters on Dec. 19, 2025. The animated short will take place in the continuity of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and finds the turtles in New Jersey after they discover a mysterious company is exploiting their image.
Directed by Kent Sazi, he spoke about combining the Ninja Turtles mythology with the tone of 1990s family comedies, specifically Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, from which the Turtles short draws its name. “I grew up loving both ‘Home Alone’ and the Ninja Turtles, and this project became a way to smash those influences together,” Sazi said. “The turtles are constantly in survival mode — but here, survival means figuring out the Jersey Turnpike.” Sazi spoke about the decision to put the Turtles in a new environment and how he hopes it opens the door for new adventures in the future, saying:
“We wanted to honor the Ninja Turtles’ history while asking what would happen if we put them somewhere completely unfamiliar. New Jersey became the perfect backdrop because it’s so close to New York, yet has its own energy and quirks that challenge the turtles in new ways…I think audiences are hungry for new ways to experience these characters. We’ll always love seeing them in New York, but throwing them somewhere unexpected opens the door to new humor, new stakes and new visual possibilities. If people connect with this one, I’d love to keep exploring that.”
Turtle Power Is Back
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Home Alone are an interesting combination to mash up, but not the wildest franchise the pizza-loving turtles have crossed over with. Both Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the original Home Alone were released in 1990 and became defining movies for a generation of kids. Buzz for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Chrome Alone 2: Lost in New Jersey is high as it became the first animated short selected by Variety‘s Pencils and Pixels series that highlights the year’s most innovative animated films. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Chrome Alone 2: Lost in New Jersey will reportedly feature the animated characters against photorealistic backgrounds, with Sazi saying, “It was about making the turtles pop against an environment that feels almost too real, so every pizza slice and sewer lid becomes a character in its own right.”
The plot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Chrome Alone 2: Lost in New Jersey seems like a meta-riff on the franchise’s own popularity in merchandise. Originally an underground indie comic, Playmates Toys turned the brand into one of the most profitable franchises in history and transformed the characters into the lovable heroes fans know today. The idea of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fighting a foe that wants to exploit their image opens the door for some fun comedic possibilities in the seven-minute short.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Chrome Alone 2: Lost in New Jersey is the latest expansion of the Mutant Mayhem corner of the franchise. Despite a four-year gap between the first film and its planned sequel, Paramount Pictures has kept these incarnations of Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michaelangelo in the public eye. The animated series, Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, debuted on Paramount+ on Aug. 9, 2024, and has already been renewed for a second season. The sequel to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is currently set for release on Sept. 17, 2027.
- Release Date
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August 2, 2023
- Runtime
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100 minutes
- Director
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Jeff Rowe
- Writers
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Dan Hernandez, Jeff Rowe, Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen, Benji Samit, Brendan O’Brien, Peter Laird, Kevin Eastman
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Micah Abbey
Donatello (voice)
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Shamon Brown Jr.
Michelangelo (voice)
