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Adi Shankar Wants To Make A Power Rangers: Civil War Movie

2017's Power Rangers movie reboot didn't make the splash Saban and Lionsgate were hoping for, with director Dean Israelite retrospectively admitting that perhaps the problem lied that it was pitched awkwardly between family and adult audiences. This alternate idea for a new adventure starring those mighty morphin heroes definitely wouldn't have that problem, though, as it would fall squarely on the mature side.

2017’s Power Rangers reboot didn’t make the splash that Saban and Lionsgate were hoping for, with director Dean Israelite retrospectively admitting that perhaps the problem was because it was pitched awkwardly between family and adult audiences. This alternate idea for a new adventure starring those mighty morphin heroes definitely wouldn’t have that problem, though, as it would fall squarely on the mature side.

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Producer Adi Shankar’s familiar to fans for his Power/Rangers short film that went viral when it was dropped online back in 2015. The 15 minute movie, starring Katie Sackhoff and James Van Der Beek, reimagined the Rangers universe as an R-rated sci-fi dystopia. And it seems that Shankar’s entertained the idea of a full-length feature with a similar vibe.

ComicBook.com spoke to the producer at Power Morphicon, where he revealed that he’d love to see a Power Rangers: Civil War movie which would have the various factions of the color-coded crusaders do battle.

“I really liked the idea of a civil war amongst the Power Rangers. That was actually my pitch for the movie that I never told anyone because it just got too crazy.”

Though the project was never officially pitched, Shankar clearly thought about it a lot as he went on to reveal that it would’ve dealt with a darker take on the Power Rangers, with the in-fighting happening due to the totalitarianism that had corrupted the Rangers’ peaceful regime.

“Yeah, ’cause I wanted to do a movie called ‘Power Rangers: Civil War,’ where it’s basically like The Raid, but it’s this young recruit. Cause then the Power Rangers are this global establishment, and at a certain point it becomes incorporated, and there’s a lot of people with Power Coins and s***. And then, yeah, there’s a little kid, and you realize the Rangers have been corrupted. But it’s not good versus evil, it’s just warring ideologies, and how to govern, how to militarize.”

There would’ve been the customary action that fans expect from the franchise as well, as Shankar went on to reveal what the big final act of the movie would’ve included. Namely, an awesome-sounding conflict between a Megazord and a Tigerzord!

“It ended with… not ended, but it had this battle scene where he basically has this Tigerzord, and he has to take down a Megazord, so he loads up a bunch of nukes into the Tigerzord, and he rides in. He’s not piloting it, he’s standing on top of it, and he backflips off of it and lands on a building while the Zord plows into a thing and goes boom and nukes a Megazord.”

It’d to be a lie to say this wouldn’t be amazing to see realized on the big screen, though there’s little chance that Hasbro – the new owners of the brand – would go in this direction. That being said, it does look like some sort of sequel or follow-up to the 2017 Power Rangers is happening, though what shape or form it’ll take currently remains unknown.