#greg weisman

Ciro Nieli ("Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!", Warner Bros Animation "Teen Titans", Marvel Animation "The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes", Nickelodeon Animation Studios "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and Hasbro Entertaiment "Transformers Earthspark") shared concept art of a proposed "Gargoyles" reboot/sequel series that he pitched at Disney Television Animation in 2020.

Sadly the project would get passed due the COVID-19 cuts at Disney Television Animation alongside an original show idea he had "Weirdo Pizza". These cuts also affected other scrapped projects like "Weird Waters" by Jacob Hair and Bob Bowen, "Planet Runaway" and a Untitled "Lockjaw/Marvel" project by Ben Balistreri as well a yet to be revealed project by "Star Vs. The Forces Of Evil" and "Gravity Falls" alumni Sage Cotugno.

A live-action reboot of the series for Disney+ is currently in development at Disney Television Studios and Atomic Monster with Gary Dauberman (Warner Bros "Anabelle" franchise, Paramount Pictures "Street Fighter") as showrunner and James Wan and Michael Clear (A24 "Backrooms") as executive producers. Dauberman would mention that the project was still alive in April 2025 during Wondercon 2025.

"Back in 2020 I was working at Disney TV Animation development. One of the projects I touched upon was the now classic, Gargoyles. My pitch was a respectful and simple continuation of the series: Canmore, with the Grimorium Arcanium, casts the Gargoyles back into a deep sleep while he overtakes the 5 Burroughs of NYC with crime lords and monster beasts. 25 years later, in 2020, once police commissioner, Eliza Masa, raises the Gargoyles from their spell and the fight to take back the city begins. The art choice was a streamlined look, because I wanted full 2D animation and was reluctant to change the established core aesthetic. Unseen here is Goliath had lost his arm and replaced it with a cybernetic one." - Ciro Nieli

Hello, 2025! We are back! And we are joined by episode writers: Diane Duane and Peter Morwood! And we’re also joined by Series Creator, Greg Weisman, as usual! We have a lively discussion about Diane and Peter’s careers! Life in Ireland! The myth of Cu Chullain and the choices made in adapting this figure into the “Gargoyles Universe” because the mythological version is very colorful. We also discuss many other aspects of the episode, including sound design, the guest cast who took center stage, and the star power of Rory and Molly… and discussion of a couple of spin-offs that would have featured them! And more, MUCH MORE!

Available on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Audible, Spotify, and your podcatcher of choice! And join us on Patreon for the Exclusive Video Edition! 

Gargoyles x Fantastic Four (one-shot) (variant cover) (2025)

[Arthur Adams' Fantastic Four Vol. 1 #600 (variant cover) (2011) homage, which's a homage and recreation of Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott's Fantastic Four Vol. 1 #82 (1969) cover.] [for the photo reference, click here.]

There’s something I keep coming back to when I think about Peter Laird and the Shredder, because it perfectly captures that tension between creator intent and what a franchise eventually becomes.

I tend to side with creators. I really do. I value intent. I value authorship. I value the idea that the people who made the thing might actually know what they were trying to do with it. But sometimes a property grows beyond its original shape, and at that point you’re no longer dealing with just intent. You’re dealing with cultural reality.

And that’s where Laird runs into a wall.

In the original Mirage run of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Shredder is not the Joker. He is not Lex Luthor. He is not meant to be this endlessly recurring archnemesis. He shows up, he serves his purpose, and he dies. It is a revenge story with a beginning, middle, and end. That decision makes perfect sense in 1984 when this is a scrappy, creator owned comic that nobody expects to turn into a global phenomenon.

But then it does.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon turns the Shredder into a household name. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie cements him as the central villain. The video games make him the final boss. Decade after decade, adaptation after adaptation, the message becomes very clear. This is the guy.

So when the 2007 TMNT movie rolls around and Laird insists on keeping the Shredder out of it because he wants to move the franchise away from the idea that the Shredder is the Turtles’ archnemesis, I get it. I understand where he is coming from. He is trying to course correct back to the original vision.

But that genie is not going back into the bottle.

At that point, the Shredder is not just a character. He is brand identity. You are not just asking audiences to accept a different storytelling choice. You are asking them to unlearn twenty years of reinforcement across multiple mediums. That is not a fight you are going to win.

And here is the thing. I cannot think of another TMNT villain who can actually fill that space. Krang, Baxter Stockman, Karai. They are all important. None of them are that guy. None of them tie together the personal history with Splinter, the ninja mythology, the iconography, and the immediate recognizability the way the Shredder does. He is the structural anchor whether Laird likes it or not.

But this is why I find Laird fascinating rather than frustrating, because he did not just resist this. He also adapted.

The 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles makes one of the smartest decisions the franchise has ever made by turning the Shredder into an Utrom. Suddenly, everything clicks. You are no longer choosing between the grounded ninja revenge story and the weird science fiction elements. You are unifying them. The Shredder becomes both.

As Ch'rell, he is a war criminal hiding behind the armor of a ninja warlord. That explains his longevity, his resources, his larger than life presence. It ties him directly into the Utrom mythology while still keeping him rooted in the Foot Clan and everything that defines the Turtles’ world.

That is not Laird rejecting the Shredder. That is Laird redefining him in a way that actually aligns with his sensibilities.

And it raises an interesting question. If Laird knew in 1984 what TMNT was going to become, does the Shredder die in that first issue?

I doubt it.

Because once you are building a franchise instead of telling a one shot story, you need a central antagonist. You need a symbol. You need someone who can carry narrative weight across multiple arcs. The original decision to kill the Shredder makes perfect sense for what TMNT was. It makes a lot less sense for what TMNT became.

And that is really the core of this whole thing.

With something like Gargoyles, you can absolutely point to Demona as the central antagonist, and I would argue the world ultimately does depend on her in a way that becomes clearer over time. She is not just another recurring villain in the rotation. She is the emotional and thematic core of the conflict, and when Greg Weisman continues the story in the comics for his intended third season, she naturally reclaims that primary antagonist role. That stands in direct contrast to what The Goliath Chronicles did by elevating the Quarrymen into that position. So when Weisman says the Quarrymen were never meant to be the main villains, he is not redefining the show so much as reaffirming where the story was always meant to go.

With TMNT, the Shredder became something else entirely. He is not just a great villain. He is the face of the conflict. He is the spine of the mythology as it exists in the public consciousness.

So Laird ends up in this very human contradiction. On one hand, he wants to preserve the original intent. On the other hand, he helps create one of the most effective reinterpretations of the Shredder the franchise has ever seen.

And honestly, that might be the real takeaway.