There’s a new Power Rangers movie in the works at Paramount, and it might be taking place in the 1990s. Jonathan Entwistle, head of Netflix’s The End of the F***ing World and I’m Not Okay With This, is in early negotiations to direct the latest reboot of the popular live-action superhero franchise, and he aims to take the series back to the past.
Created by media mogul Haim Saban and first airing in 1993, the Power Rangers series has run on various channels over the course of 26 years. Merging originally-shot footage with scenes from the long-running Japanese tokusatu program, Super Sentai, Power Rangers tells the tale of five “teenagers with attitude” who band together against the forces of evil using energized power suits and highly advanced mech vehicles called “Zords.” Three movies have been produced based on the show to date: an out-of-continuity side story in 1995, an in-universe adventure in 1997 and a darker, updated reboot in 2017.
THR broke the news of yet another updated take on the series, with word that this planned film would involve time travel as the Rangers find themselves trapped in the 1990s. In addition to Entwistle, Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway scribe Patrick Burleigh is writing the script, which Paramount hopes will re-capture the roots of what made the original show an overwhelming success back in ‘93.
The last film, Dean Israelite’s 2017 update which was titled simply Power Rangers, earned mixed critical reception and poor box office numbers, ultimately leading then-producers Lionsgate to scrap plans for a series of sequels. Once Hasbro purchased the rights to the franchise the following year, rumors began to circulate that the Transformers and My Little Pony creators would reboot the series yet again, with previous star Dacre Montgomery confirming that the cast of the last film wouldn’t be reprising their roles in the future.
A new film in the beloved Power Rangers universe is always an exciting prospect, and Entwistle is no stranger to stories about teenagers struggling to balance their hectic high school lives with the extraordinary powers they’ve been granted, something the franchise deals with in spades. The proposed time travel angle also brings some interesting possibilities. Will this tale be something like X-Men: Days Of Future Past, with a new team of Rangers seeking aide from the heroes of the past to prevent a great tragedy in their time? Or will a villain travel back in hopes of conquering a less-protected world, forcing the Rangers to follow them in the vein of the show’s ninth season, Power Rangers Time Force. These are both intriguing concepts that would set the new film apart from the previous reboot, but only time will tell if Paramount can re-capture the franchises’ magic for a new generation of moviegoers in ways that Lionsgate and Dean Israelite couldn’t.
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Source: THR
