Kyler Spears

Kyler Spears is an animation director who has co-directed the reboot, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023), and has served as co-director of Nickelodeon Animation, starting in late 2020. After dropping out of CalArts’ animation school, Spears interned at Pixar Animation Studio and then was an animator at Fox Animation.

From 2013 to 2018, Spears was a story artist for the Cartoon Network, Illumination Entertainment, Sony Pictures Animation, and Disney Television Animation. At the latter, Spears was also an assistant director and director on a Disney TV-produced animation series. Spears was a storyboard artist on the Lord-Miller production under the Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Animation production banner, The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021), working alongside co-directors Michael Rianda and Jeff Rowe.

Spears was a story artist under co-directors Kyle Banda, Brad Ableson, and Jonathan del Val on Universal Pictures/Illumination Entertainment’s $1 billion-grossing animated hit, Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022). Kyler Spears was elevated to co-director with co-director Rowe of the anticipated reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023), starring the voices of Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Nicolas Cantu, Ayo Edebiri, Maya Rudolph, and John Cena.