Last year’s Power Rangers movie didn’t exactly set the world on fire, but it was hardly a disaster. The $100M film earned just $142M worldwide, but that seemed to be enough to get some talk about a sequel started. All of that changed last month when Hasbro bought the entire Power Rangers line, toys, movies, and TV rights included, from Saban Entertainment for over $500M. So what does that mean for the future of the franchise?
Hasbro already has a movie deal in place with Paramount, and are building a new cinematic universe with GI Joe, MASK, and other toy brands, along with their lucrative Transformers franchise. Would Power Rangers be joining that? We don’t know that much for sure yet, but what has been confirmed is that more Mighty Morphin movies are on the way. Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner revealed as much to Tokunation…
“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.”
Yeah, he pretty much spells it out, doesn’t he? Goldner says that he thinks the previous rights holders didn’t do nearly enough with the brand and Hasbro intends to “exploit it to a much greater extent.” So expect to see not only movies but a multiplatform agenda that will have Power Rangers everywhere whether you like it or not.
I think this is also a good way for Hasbro to say they’ll be moving forward with a reboot and not a sequel to the Dean Israelite-directed movie. It makes the most sense, doesn’t it?