While there has been more attention recently on Joseph Kahn and Adi Shankar’s Bootleg Universe version of the characters, the official, Haim Saban-sponsored new Power Rangers film is still in the works. And now it has a director in negotiations: Project Almanac’s Dean Israelite.
Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz are crafting the script, with Star Trek /** Transformers** writer Roberto Orci present to help guide the story’s structure.
What that story will be is still unclear, but will likely function as a fresh variant of the usual Rangers trope: a group of ordinary – at least by the standards of the show – teenagers, who when danger strikes, “morph” into superheroes with specific powers, whereupon, they battle a variety of beasts and other villains. Launched in 1993, the show became the most-watched children’s TV programme and, remains one of the top-rated and longest running live-action TV series in history, morphing into different versions with new casts and a variation of the title each time. The new movie is taking aim at a 2016 release slot.
According to The Wrap, Israelite is a fan of the property and thanks to his work on Almanac, has experience with effects and wrangling young stars. Could Lionsgate be hoping that he’s the latest director to jump from a (relatively in this case) small-scale movie to something bigger, like Colin “Jurassic World” Trevorrow and Rupert “Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes” Wyatt?