In the absence of technology that would allow them to just cut out the middleman and option your junior high school memories directly, Lionsgate has been forced to develop a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers reboot. Variety reports that the studio is partnering on a new Power Rangers with Saban Brands, the company that first applied its strategic omni-channel management approach to delighting children in 1993, combining stock footage from the Japanese series Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger with cheaply made scenes starring American actors, and creating a powerful super-team of inexpensive resources and intellectual property development that kids of the ’90s simply couldn’t get enough of monetizing. (“My favorite is the Pink Licensed Brand Extension! She’s spunky!” they would say.)
Since then, Power Rangers has existed in some recut and “re-versioned” form more or less continuously, borrowed from new seasons of Sentai footage, and even some of the same original footage being repurposed with new effects to create the illusion of an all-new season. A movie franchise “re-envisioning” is therefore the next logical step. It’s unclear whether Saban will convince Lionsgate that it could maximize its approach to extending the Power Rangers brand by similarly repurposing footage from 1995’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie or 1997’s Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie, perhaps by adding in new cut-scenes of people holding cell phones.
Either way, the new Power Rangers movie will also follow a group of teenagers “with attitude” who proactively repurpose themselves into superheroes, pilot giant robots, and fight aliens—all by harnessing the power of their own inner brand enhancement. And it’s expected to appeal to an audience for whom nostalgia is an omni-channel management approach to amusement, and a new generation eager for strategic repackaging of established intellectual property.
“Will they have the Dinozords or the Thunderzords?!” grown adults on the Internet are currently asking aloud, strategically maximizing the Power Rangers brand already.