‘Hunger Games: Catching Fire’s’ Alan Ritchson cast in ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ as Raphael

Alan Ritchson, who is currently working on Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, has been cast as Raphael in Michael Bay’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot.

According to Deadline, Ritchson is the first actor cast as any of the four turtles in the CGI/live-action film that Bay (Transformers) is producing.

Ritchson is playing Gloss, a tribute who uses daggers, in Catching Fire, the second part in Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy. That film hits theaters on Nov. 22.

Ritchson, 28, also starred in Smallville as Aquaman and has made appearances on CSI: Miami, 90210 and Blue Mountain State.

Jonathan Liebesman is set to direct Ninja Turtles, which Paramount pushed back to June 6, 2014. Deadline notes that the project’s budget was cut to $125 million, although the studio hopes to use motion capture for the turtles.

Megan Fox was previously cast as the female lead and will probably play the turtles’ female sidekick, April O’Neil.