Does Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem Have a Post-Credits Scene?

This article contains some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem spoilers.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem really is a fresh start for Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael on the big screen. There have of course been many Ninja Turtles movies before 2023. Too many, in fact. And yet, what seemed hopelessly dated when Michael Bay rebooted the brand with garish CGI in the 2010s is now fresh and fun again.

This is in large part because of both the style of animation directorJeff Rowe employed on the amphibian guys, as well as the choices he and producers/writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg made by casting actual teenagers as the Turtles. For the first time in forever, the Turtles feel young and vital. However, there were other less obvious but still impressive choices made—such as that this is one of the few TMNT movies not to feature the Shredder and/or the Foot Clan as the big heavies.

Don’t get us wrong, we love Shredder, and all the nostalgia that comes from Turtles busting up faceless martial arts goons in his employ. However, despite fans of the ‘80s cartoon long knowing who Baxter Stockman is, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem marked the first time the Turtles went up against one of their beloved and lesser antagonists on the big screen: a giant anthropomorphic fly.

Which makes the tease in Mutant Mayhem’s post-credits scene about who’s next all the more intriguing…

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem Post-Credits Scene

Yes, Mutant Mayhem has a post-credits scene, or perhaps “mid-credits” would be more appropriate. Because that’s how long you have to wait until the big sequel tease to the summer’s most bodacious ninjitsu movie arrives.

When the mid-credits begin, we see how the evil scientist Cynthia Utrom (Maya Rudolph) reacts in the secret lair of TCRI to the Turtles becoming New York City celebrities, complete with their own high school prom. She and her minions in lab coats are unimpressed, so they decide to kick things to the next level: Cynthia orders her subordinates to call on “the Shredder.”

The film’s animation then pulls out from the NYC skyline, where it’s raining, to reveal the profile of a caped Shredder staring at the Big Apple. And based on our brief glance at the super-villain, his costume looks particularly nasty-sharp.

Yep, it would seem if there is a sequel to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, the Shredder is set up as the big bad.

Which we have to admit suddenly seems pretty rad after Mutant Mayhem. While the Shredder has been the big bad of nearly every previous live-action Ninja Turtles flick, in many of them he’s come off as something of a joke, including in the back-to-back Bay-produced pictures where he was second banana to either Krang or… William Fichtner as some rando dude?

Conversely, Superfly as voiced by Ice Cub was a genuinely worthy antagonist. He was both charismatic enough to make you see why the Turtles could be won over by their new “cuz” and also animated in such a way that he was physically intimidating to the pint-sized Turtles. The character also took creative risks since he’s not exactly like the Baxter Stockman version of The Fly in the old cartoon. Presumably, such a desire to raise the stakes on as well-worn a villain as the Shredder would also be deployed in a sequel.

The fact that this Shredder is some boogeyman hitman is intriguing enough. So for the next one, can we just say… Cowabunga?