Hasbro CEO Confirms Plans For More POWER RANGERS Movies In The Future
While the recent Lionsgate-backed Power Rangers movie was far from a box office hit, it looks like Hasbro, who recently acquired the entire franchise, has plans to bring the heroes back to the big screen.
Despite a strong opening weekend, Lionsgate's Power Rangers reboot failed to make its mark at the worldwide box office last year and ultimately finished its run with an extremely underwhelming $142.3 million ($85.3M domestic; $56.9M foreign) on a reported $100 million production budget. While sequel talks did seem to resume after the film debuted on Blu-ray, those talks quickly fizzled and the focus quickly shifted back to the hit television series and the upcoming 25th Anniversary celebration.
After that, Saban remained fairly quiet on the Power Rangers front until this past February when it was reported that Hasbro had acquired the master toy license for the franchise. Then, the whole situation got a whole lot more interesting when the top toy company announced last month that they had acquired the entire Power Rangers franchise, including the film & tv rights, from Saban Entertainment for $522 million.
Since the deal isn't expected to be finalized until the end of this month, there hasn't really been much information regarding the future of the franchise. However, while speaking at the Hasbro Strategic Decisions Conference on Thursday, Hasbro Inc. CEO Brian Goldner shared the following statement in regards to the company's high-profile acquisition of the Power Rangers franchise and their plans moving forward. “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.”
While continuing the series on television is likely a given, it appears that we've finally received confirmation that Hasbro does intend to bring the colorful heroes back to the big screen sooner than later, but it remains to be seen whether it will be a continuation of the most recent film or if it'll be an entirely new set of heroes embarking on an all-new cinematic adventure. However, considering that Hasbro does have a highly lucrative partnership with Paramount Pictures, it seems increasingly unlikely that fans will get a true sequel to the Dean Israelite-directed film that was backed by Lionsgate. With the little information we have at the moment, a reboot seems more probable.
So, what do you guys think? Sound off with your thoughts below!