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Power Rangers revival

Nickelodeon will revive the Power Rangers franchise, after the brand was sold by Disney.

Israeli-American media mogul Haim Saban has bought back the rights to Power Rangers, the hit television show thathelped him dominate US children’s television in the 1990s, from Walt Disney Co.

The Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers became a ratings success when Saban developed and launched the show in 1993. Disney bought the franchise in 2001 as part of its acquisition of Fox Family Worldwide, a company Saban co-owned.

But Disney now says the show no longer fits with the network’s image, saying “moms didn’t like it.”

Saban has also signed a deal with Nickelodeon, Disney’s primary rival, to air 20 new episodes of Power Rangers along with a catalogue of more than 700 episodes.

The deal is said to be worth about $100 million.

Originally known as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, the low-budget series consisted primarily of recycled footage from Japan of monsters battling teenage superheroes with many voices dubbed by American actors.

In 1996 the series was rebranded as the Power Rangers franchise with sequels made in New Zealand from 2003, including with Underbelly actors Anna Hutchison and Firass Dirani.

Nickelodeon recently made a similar deal to relaunch the popular 1980s cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Source: Reuters, Hollywood Reporter, LA Times

8 Responses

  1. Aww makes me remember all those classic 90’s kids shows! I still remember the Power Rangers and Captain Planet theme songs!

    The Power Rangers movie was shot in Sydney as well (at least there were parts of it done here).

  2. I could see Nick launching in the next few years, a TV Land for kids… I assume that they probably also got the back catalogue with the TMNT deal.

    Surely they have hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of live action content in their catalogue, to fill a retro kids TV live action channel, which would blend in well with their Nicktoons network, which screens Nick’s animated library.

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