Nickelodeon is trying to keep the four pizza loving turtles alive within the minds of a new audience as Viacom got the rights from The Mirage Group and 4Kids Entertainment. This is obviously a big move for the kid friendly company, who plans on making a new cgi animated series on “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” along with the potential for another feature film with Viacom’s Paramount Pictures sector. Here’s more on what they have to say in The Hollywood Reporter:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shares a comedic sensibility with the Nickelodeon DNA, with added layers of action and fantasy that have kept this property an evergreen favorite with multiple generations of audiences,” said Cyma Zarghami, president, Nickelodeon/MTVN Kids and Family Group. “We are extremely happy to have the opportunity to be able to focus on this property and creatively re-introduce it to a new generation of kids.”

Added Paramount president Adam Goodman: “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a property that maintains a very passionate global fan base, is rich with opportunity for a tentpole movie, and is exactly the right property for us to work together with Nickelodeon.”

“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” have been around since the early 1980s in comic book form but did not catch popularity until the late eighties when a television show and several live action films came out based on the comic. Recently there was a 2007 CGI-animated film called “TMNT” that brought the Ninjitsu fighting reptiles back onto the big screen.

Tags: 4Kids Entertainment, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Mirage Group, Viacom