Last year’s ‘Power Rangers’ movie was intended to reignite the fire that made this franchise a smash in the first place. Unfortunately, while it opened strong by drawing in die-hard fans, it quickly plummeted nixing the plans that Lionsgate had in place to release roughly five movies in the series. In fact, the first film included a mid-credits scene that teased the arrival of Tommy Oliver, the Green Ranger, the most popular character from the TV shows, as embodied by Jason David Frank (who made a cameo in the movie, alongside Amy Jo Johnson, the original Pink Ranger, Kimberly). But at the end of the day, the movie proved a financial disappointment. It may be due to the lackluster performance of the film that led to Saban (who originally imported the concept to America) selling the brand to Hasbro.
Hasbro has had a lot of success over the years, mostly built around the ‘Transformers’ franchise. Hasbro has had plans in place for a movie shared universe, via Paramount, bringing together several of its brands including ‘G.I. Joe’, ‘M.A.S.K.’ and ‘Micronauts’ just to name a few. Now that the toy manufacturer has acquired one of the biggest multimedia franchises ever, they have plans to use it for all it’s worth.
Hasbro’s CEO Brian Goldner issued a statement regarding the company’s plans for ‘Power Rangers’:
“The fact that we can acquire Power Rangers brand and plug and play that right into our strategy where we activate it in entertainment, motion pictures in the future and then of course across toys and games and consumer products and do so globally. We felt the brand was very under leveraged and undervalued. We feel we can exploit it to a much greater extent and it was a great opportunity to acquire the brand.”
Unfortunately, Goldner didn’t really embellish his comments, so it’s unclear if Hasbro intends to rebrand the series or carry on with what was already in place, and that includes the TV shows, movies, and toys, the latter of which has been produced since 1993 by Bandai.
Would you like for Hasbro to continue what Saban and Bandai have been doing for decades? Or do you think ‘Power Rangers’ needs a hard reboot in order to appeal to a new generation?
Source: Comic Book Movie
