Hollywood Popular Artists

May 20th 2013, 16:00

The Michael Bay-produced reboot of the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" franchise has been filming in New York City for a few weeks now, and turtles sightings—or sighting of actors in awkward motion capture suits—have become more and more frequent.

MTV News got word that Megan Fox, this version's April O'Neil, was filming a scene just down the street from our Times Square offices, so I headed down to 47th and Broadway to see what I could see.

Fox was on hand, along with one of her amphibian costars, Alan Ritchson who plays Raphael, plus three other well-known characters that you might not expect.

Read more and see more set photos after the jump!

As soon as I arrived on set, I was swept into a crowd of pedestrians who were walking across the street and into the background of the shot. Fox and Ritchson stood outside a Starbucks there. As I walked past, a Steadicam rig circled the two actors. Ritchson was handing Fox his character's signature weapon, two sai.

The background extras reset—meaning we turned around and walked back where we came from—and that's when I noticed a few characters that seemed out of place. Anyone familiar with the mob scene that is Times Square should be familiar with the people that wander the sidewalks dressed as unlicensed versions of Elmo, Mickey Mouse, and the like. There are so many deformed versions of these characters that anything legitimate sticks out.

Officially licensed versions of Spongebob, Patrick, and Dora the Explorer were hanging around set, and the storyline of the scene started to click. How could a teenage mutant ninja turtle walk around crowded Times Square? If people mistake him for a mascot character like the others.

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" hits theaters on June 6, 2014.

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