After months of rumors and speculation we finally know who William Fichtner is playing in the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, and it’ll either be great news or incredibly offensive depending on how you look at it.
Fichtner is, according to an interview he gave with the Huffington Post, going to donning the metal mask and bladed gauntlets of the Shredder.
I play Shredder. It is cool. It’s one of those things that came along where I thought, “Really? Let me think about this for a minute.” [Laughs] Then I was like, “Yeah, OK, this sounds like a journey.” I’m very glad that it worked out, I’m really glad that I’m doing it.
This is very cool since he is one of the best villainous character actors working today and currently coming off an awesome scenery chewing role in Lone Ranger. However, “Shredder” is of course the nom de guerre of Oroku Saki, a man who is… slightly less white than Fichtner. This is a fact that makes the casting much less cool, especially considering that the character has almost never been played by an Asian actor.
(“Hi, I’m James Saito. You might know me as one of only two Asian people to ever play the Shredder.”)
It really is like this movie is trying to get as much wrong as it possibly can. Is Michael Bay attempting some sort of Producers-esque scam?
