LOS ANGELES, March 12 (UPI) -- Kevin Eastman, co-creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with Peter Laird, said watching Bruce Lee movies on cable inspired his construction of comic book fight scenes.
Those fights are executed in live-action in 1991's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, returning to theaters Friday via Fathom Entertainment.
In a recent Zoom interview with UPI, Eastman, 63, described how he studied Lee and other martial artists' fights to learn "the logic of how to stage a fight scene." The comics were first published in 1984, let to an animated series and then the first 1990 movie.
"Watching those early martial arts film, certainly the Bruce Lee films which were so inspiring, but the martial arts film, to me I really embraced the idea," Eastman said. "A hit creates this, a punch creates that and a kick creates that."
In the '90s live-action movies, stuntmen performed martial arts choreography while wearing turtle costumes, designed in the first two films by Jim Henson's Creature Shop.
