The 2017 Power Rangers movie was supposed to do a lot more than restart a toy-driven superhero brand. According to Dacre Montgomery, the studio had enough confidence in the reboot to float a four-movie deal for the cast, with plans that stretched even further before the film’s box office cooled that ambition.
That sounds wildly optimistic now, but it fits the way Hollywood keeps trying to turn familiar IP into its next dependable tentpole. Power Rangers had the right ingredients on paper: a recognizable brand, a post-credits tease for Tommy Oliver, and the kind of merchandising upside studios love to talk about when the ticket sales are doing less talking for them.
Power Rangers sequel plans stretched to seven movies
Montgomery said Lionsgate initially had about seven movies in mind, which is exactly the sort of pre-release confidence that tends to age badly if opening weekend doesn’t cooperate. The film did well in merchandise and home release, but theaters were another story, and that gap is what usually kills these grand franchise spreadsheets.
For a while, there was still talk of a follow-up, but by 2019 Montgomery was already describing a different reboot without the original cast. That’s the quiet studio pivot in a nutshell: if the first swing doesn’t become a billion-dollar universe, start over and pretend the previous blueprint was just a draft.
Why studios keep overpromising on rebooted brands
Power Rangers is a useful case study because it shows how studios keep betting on nostalgia plus brand recognition, even when the math is shaky. The real winner in these situations is usually the rights holder; the losers are the actors, writers, and fans left reading about a sequel plan that never escaped the whiteboard.
- Planned cast deal: four movies
- Early studio ambition: about seven movies
- Result: merchandising and home release helped, but theatrical performance did not justify more films
What happens to Power Rangers now
There is, once again, a reboot meant for Disney+, which is fitting for a franchise that keeps getting handed back to the drawing board. Montgomery says he’d watch it like everyone else, and that may be the healthiest response: hope the next team gets the tone right, because Power Rangers has always looked one decent plan away from being huge again.