It has struggled under the weight of negative publicity following Michael Bay's (now-abandoned) plan to retool the heroes in a halfshell as "lovable aliens". But the marketing team for the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie has stepped in to restore the feelgood factor after installing a giant pizza-throwing machine for the film's launch at this week's Comic-Con in San Diego.

The 12ft-tall, 9ft-wide "live-action pizza thrower" will allow attendees to fire "pizzas" at traditional enemies of the cheese-loving reptilian quartet, who are returning for their fifth big-screen outing. According to the Hollywood Reporter, it features a 16ft cannon, which is rotatable through 180 degrees and based on an old pickup truck which has been painted with a "pizza-resistant" finish. The calorific missiles are fake, and their nefarious victims will be actors in costume as Shredder and members of his notorious Foot Clan; nevertheless, the real Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphael would no doubt approve.

The portable pizza thrower has been built by Pizza Hut, which is partnering with studio Paramount on the new film. The firm's spokesperson, Jared Drinkwater, described its construction as "one of the coolest things we've seen in a while", and said fans were "going to love taking down Shredder, sampling Cheesy Bites Pizza and will have a lot of fun with both of our brands throughout the convention".

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stars Bay favourite Megan Fox as reporter and turtle confidante April O'Neil, with The Dark Knight's William Fichtner as Shredder and Battle: Los Angeles's Jonathan Liebesman in charge of the cameras. Reaction to early trailers has been positive after Bay caved in to demands for the turtles to maintain their traditional backstory, which sees them mutating from radioactive ooze rather than arriving on Earth from outer space. The film is due on US cinemas on 8 August but doesn't arrive in the UK until 17 October.