Next up on the great, endless list of movies, TV shows, books and toys that Hollywood studios will “reboot” and repackage for a new generation of viewers and merchandise buyers is the beloved TV series, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. According to Deadline, Lionsgate is teaming with Saban Brands to bring the Power Rangers back to the big screen for a potential new franchise, which sounds easy in theory, but seeing as the 1995 film of the same name grossed an adequate $66 million on a $15 million budget and 1997’s Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie was pretty much dead at the box office, they’ve got their work cut out for them.
For starters, Lionsgate is going to need a hell of an idea to bring the Power Rangers roaring back, a la the Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and whatever other awesome toys we played with as kids.
The new film will cast a new group of high school kids who mix their studies and social lives with the mission to save the world.
Oh, okay. Well, I’m sure Lionsgate will make up for the unoriginal, stale and cookie cutter plot with some great action and not whatever that terribly-edited Japanese monster-fighting stock footage was supposed to be. I don’t know, maybe I’m just bitter about this stupid idea because it’s 2014 and we’ve had four Transformers movies, two Godzilla reboots, countless comic book films and comic book reboots, and even a giant robot-fights-kaiju movie with Pacific Rim, and Hollywood can’t get its crap together and make a Voltron movie already.
I can almost hear Taylor Kitsch’s voice saying, “And I’ll form head!” In the meantime, $10 says Olivia Munn plays the Pink Power Ranger.