Power Rangers producer Haim Saban is plotting a further five movies in the franchise.
The popular 1990s live action superhero television series is being rebooted once again with the release of Power Rangers due to hit theaters on Friday (24Mar17). The cast features the likes of Dacre Montgomery, Becky G, Naomi Scott, Bill Hader and Elizabeth Banks.
In the film, the character of Zordon, played by Bryan Cranston, recruits five high school students to form a team that must stop an alien threat led by the witch Rita Repulsa, and Saban shares that he has plans in place to continue the storyline for several more installments.
“We already have a six-movie story arc,” he told Variety, adding that the narratives and action sequences in the films will be updated for modern audiences. “But today’s young audience is much more sophisticated. Think about movies like Jungle Book and Arrival. The effects are mind-boggling. So does the young audience expect more? You bet they do – and they will have it.”
Saban, who has an estimated net worth of $3 billion, sold his company and the Power Rangers brand to Disney in 2001, only to buy it back in 2010. He explains that he didn’t think the studio fully understood the power of the show, and is confident the next reiteration will gain a lot of interest.
“If this film is as successful as I hope on March 24, on March 25 we’ll have the first story meeting for Movie No. 2,” he added.
For the Power Rangers movie, Saban selected South African director and producer Dean Israelite to helm the flick. And Israelite, whose only other directing credit is 2015’s Project Almanac, admits that having such a “massive” budget to work with proved to be interesting.
“My first film was a $12 million studio film,” he shared. “When a studio makes a film for that little money, you work under the radar. I thought this would be the same, except with more people on a bigger scale. But there were so many variable elements I had to have a clear hold on… I had to be fluent and it was a big learning curve.”
