After his latest Netflix teen drama I Am Not Okay With This was canceled to the fury of subscribers everywhere despite already being renewed for a second season, Jonathan Entwistle isn’t wasting any time tackling a new and much bigger project. Having been confirmed to write and direct the upcoming Power Rangers reboot a while back, Hasbro have now announced that a shared universe is on the way, and the next batch of stories will tell an interconnected tale spanning both the movies and TV shows.
All of the toy company’s Power Rangers output will be produced and distributed by Entertainment One, who they purchased as a subsidiary in 2019. eOne have been involved in some pretty major productions over the last few years, including 12 Years a Slave, 1917, Green Book and La La Land, but they aren’t exactly well known for churning out action-packed blockbusters.
In a statement to celebrate Entwistle signing on the dotted line, though, eOne’s Film President Nick Myer and Global Television President Michael Lombardo revealed their excitement at having The End of the F**king World creator spearheading the next generation of Power Rangers adaptations.
“Jonathan has an incredible creative vision for this iconic and hugely successful franchise, and is hands down the right architect to join us as we re-imagine the television and film worlds of this property. Across our slate, we are looking forward to working with the most talented storytellers as we take on Hasbro’s rich fan favorite brands and build entertainment universes around them.”
Hopefully it fares better than the last reboot, which disappointed critically and commercially but still managed to turn a profit thanks to some hefty merchandise sales. In fact, that was one of the reasons why Hasbro shelled out over half a billion dollars for the property in 2018. All we know so far about Entwistle’s Power Rangers is that it will feature time travel and head back to the 1990s, and will in theory be a lot more fun that Dean Israelite’s version that took itself far too seriously given the inherently ridiculous nature of the source material.
