From Teen Movies to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Sarah Michelle Gellar, star of the teen sci-fi drama, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Fantastic Four's Chris Evans and Memoirs of a Geisha actress, Zhang Ziyi will be among some of the voices featured in the new animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film produced by Imagi Animation Studios, and distributed by Warner Bros. and The Weinstein Company.

Gellar will be the voice of April, the woman researcher who helps keep the Ninja turtles, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael safe, while Evans will voice the part of Casey Jones, April's boyfriend. Ziyi will lend her voice to Karai, a female villain who leads a dangerous band of ninjas. Patrick Stewart, of X-Men: The Last Stand and Star Trek: The Next Generation, will also be featured in the film as will Kevin Smith, filmmaker responsible for such classics as Clerks, Dogma, and Chasing Amy.

The film will be directed by Kevin Munroe, animator/comic-book artist who wrote the screenplay with the help of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator Peter Laird. Laird will be an executive producer for the film along with Francis Kao, Gary Richardson and Frederick U. Fierst. The movie is to be a combination of the cartoon series as well as a continuation of the second live-action Ninja Turtle movie.

Laird and Kevin Eastman started the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book in 1984 with a 40-page black and white issue. Then came three live-action films and a cartoon series. Most recently, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles returned to television in February 2003 on Fox's 4Kids TV block in the U.S. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-Fast Forward, a series set 99 years in the future. The film is set to be released in theatres on March 23rd.