Since the first news hit the interwebs that the Power Rangers is due for another big budget silver screen adaptation, many geeks shunned the idea of this movie happening. A “Power Rangers” movie based on the wildly popular live action children’s television series is probably not the first thing on everyone’s mind, depending if you are a diehard fan of the costumed heroes. Boasting with 20 television seasons of 17 different themed series and two theatrical films over the last two decades, Lionsgate is set to make a killing of an already established multimillion dollar empire. There are some very good reasons to be a little excited about the news!

The big screen adaptation is receiving a creative team second to none, which include the like of Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz (“X-Men: First Class”) who are tapped to write script, Roberto Orci who penned “The Amazing Spider-Man” and “Transformers” will executive produce, and the scribe who is currently working on “Star Trek 3” will help Miller and Stentz develop the story. Also producing is Allison Shearmur, who oversaw The Hunger Games when she was Lionsgate’s president of production and recently produced Disney’s Cinderella. Excited yet?

The new "Power Ranger" feature film is expected to launch a potential new franchise

The new “Power Ranger” feature film is expected to launch a potential new franchise

Thanks to The Hollywood Reporter for the news, we can expect the following from the new movie:

“The new movie promises to completely re-envision the Rangers, a group of high school kids who are infused with unique superpowers but must harness and use those powers as a team if they have any hope of saving the world.”

Orci and Shearmur will be joined by Haim Saban (series creator) and Brian Casentini (Saban Brands’ head of development and production) as producers. No director and actors have been announced yet. The film is expected to launch a potential new franchise and follow the successes of Lionsgate’s series like “Twilight”, “The Hunger Games”, and “Divergent”.

 

For those of you not in the know, here is some info for the Power Rangers, courtesy of Powerrangers.wikia.com and Fanlore.org:

“Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (often abbreviated as “MMPR”) is a live-action television and movie series based on the Super Sentai series Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger,literally Dinosaur Squadron Beast Ranger and often abbreviated as Zyuranger (after the Kunrei-shiki romanization). Although Zyuranger was the main Sentai used for MMPR, it also uses elements (mecha and monsters) from Gosei Sentai Dairanger, literally Five-Star Squadron Dairanger, in its second season and Ninja Sentai Kakuranger, or Ninja Squadron Kakuranger, in it’s third season. At the time, the Super Sentai genre was one of Japan’s hottest tokusatsu properties, and Haim Saban seized an opportunity to adapt it for American audiences.”

“Power Rangers is an umbrella term for a series of children’s shows that first aired in 1993 under the title Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers ran for three years and was followed by a miniseries (Mighty Morphin’ Alien Rangers) which connected the original team to the first followup team (Power Rangers Zeo) in 1996. Every year thereafter has seen a new team use the name Power Rangers, typically with all-new characters and a unique storyline. This trend was followed until 2011 with Samurai, which was cut in half and became the 2012 season, Super Samurai, and was repeated the next year with Megaforce and Super Megaforce.”