The Power Rangers Reboot Failed Because Hasbro Is Being Cheap

So once again, Power Rangers is dead before it even really got started.

Deadline reported that Disney+ is no longer moving forward with the new live-action Power Rangers series, which had been in development for about a year and a half. The project was being developed through 20th Television, with Percy Jackson and the Olympians showrunners Jonathan E. Steinberg and Dan Shotz writing and executive producing.

According to the reporting, the reason Disney passed wasn’t really creative.

It was business.

More specifically, it came down to the budget and the economics of spending a lot of money producing a high-end superhero series based on an intellectual property Disney doesn’t actually own.

Hasbro owns Power Rangers.

And that right there is where I think we need to start talking about Hasbro.

Because I’m going to say something that might sound harsh:

I think Hasbro is being cheap with Power Rangers.

I’m not saying Deadline reported that Hasbro refused to finance the series. We don’t actually know what the negotiations behind closed doors looked like, and I don’t want to pretend we do.

What we do know is the underlying problem.

Disney and 20th Television would have been making a very expensive superhero series around a franchise they don’t own. Hasbro owns the franchise, and Hasbro would continue to own it afterward.

That changes the math considerably.

If Disney spends hundreds of millions of dollars developing something from Marvel or Star Wars, Disney owns Marvel and Star Wars. The show can drive Disney+ subscriptions, merchandise, movies, theme parks, games, and everything else underneath the Disney umbrella.

Power Rangers doesn’t work like that.

Disney would be spending a ton of money making somebody else’s franchise more valuable.

At some point, somebody looked at that deal and apparently said, “Why are we taking this much risk?”

And honestly?

That’s a perfectly reasonable question.

I Was Actually Interested in This Reboot

What’s frustrating is that I actually wanted to see what they were going to do.

This wasn’t supposed to just be another season of Power Rangers where they grabbed the newest Super Sentai series, filmed some American actors around it, and adapted whatever footage Toei gave them.

This was supposed to be a complete reset.

The new series was being positioned as a reinvention of Power Rangers for a new generation, and reports indicated that it would not rely on Super Sentai footage.

That means original Ranger footage.

Original suits.

Original monsters.

Original fight scenes.

Original weapons.

Original Zords.

And whatever amount of visual effects would have been needed to make all of that work.

That immediately makes Power Rangers more expensive.

But creatively?

I was interested.

There were also reports and rumors surrounding the potential cast. One of the bigger ones was that Peyton Elizabeth Lee was being considered for the Red Ranger. Other reports connected Joel Oulette to Blue and Momona Tamada to Pink, but none of that was ever formally announced by Disney or Hasbro.

And yes, that would have given us another female Red Ranger.

I’m completely fine with that.

Actually, I would have preferred it.

We already had Amelia become the Red Ranger in Power Rangers Cosmic Fury, and I thought she was fantastic. Her progression from Dino Fury into Cosmic Fury is one of the things I really enjoyed about those seasons.

I’ve watched Cosmic Fury multiple times.

So no, I’m not interested in the whole argument that Power Rangers failed because somebody somewhere wanted a female character in charge.

Give me a strong female Red Ranger.

Give me a woman who can be powerful, feminine, flawed, funny, and actually written like a human being instead of feeling like a corporate checklist.

I’m there.

That’s not the problem.

The problem is that we apparently couldn’t even get far enough to see what they were going to do.

Hasbro Has Been Slowly Pulling Away From Power Rangers

This is where my frustration with Hasbro goes beyond this one television series.

Hasbro bought Power Rangers from Saban in 2018 as part of a $522 million acquisition that included Power Rangers and several other entertainment properties.

Before that acquisition was even completed, Hasbro had already replaced Bandai as the global master toy licensee for Power Rangers. Hasbro’s rights became effective in 2019 outside Japan and certain Asian markets, ending Bandai’s long run producing Power Rangers toys.

And this is one of those decisions where I still wonder if everybody involved really understood what they were changing.

As a collector, I wish Hasbro had leaned further into the Japanese side of the franchise instead of moving away from it.

Give kids something like the Zord Builder line.

That’s fine.

I actually think Zord Builder was a pretty good concept for children. You could mix things together, combine stuff, and make your own creations.

But why couldn’t we have had both?

Give children a cheaper Zord Builder Megazord.

Then give collectors the DX-style release.

I’m in my forties. I don’t need every Megazord designed around the idea that I’m going to throw it across the living room.

Give me the version with the transformation, articulation, paint, and features I want.

Then let the children’s version sit right next to it.

There are enough of us now.

Toy collecting isn’t some weird little thing people hide in their basement anymore.

Anime isn’t like that anymore either.

When I was younger, being the nerd who liked anime, giant robots, Power Rangers, and toys wasn’t exactly considered cool.

Now someone can walk into my collection room, and the reaction isn’t, “You still play with toys?”

It’s usually more like, “Holy crap, this is awesome.”

The audience grew up.

The industry needs to understand that.

There are kids buying toys, and there are adults who grew up with this stuff who now have money and want better versions of the things they loved.

Those don’t have to be the same product.

Hasbro Doesn’t Even Make Power Rangers Toys Anymore

The strangest part is that Hasbro eventually stopped manufacturing the main Power Rangers toy line itself anyway.

In April 2024, Hasbro announced that Playmates Toys would take over production and distribution of Power Rangers toys beginning in 2025.

Playmates received licensing rights covering action figures, role-play items, vehicles, accessories, and other categories outside Asia, while Hasbro retained the entertainment rights and continued to oversee the franchise.

And I’m actually hopeful about Playmates.

I want them to succeed.

I want somebody making Power Rangers toys who understands that there are children discovering this brand and adults who have been buying this stuff for thirty years.

Those are two different markets, but they don’t have to fight each other.

Playmates can make a $30 or $40 Megazord for a kid.

Then make something better for me.

I’m willing to pay more when I can see where the money went.

What frustrates me is paying more and getting less.

That’s something I’ve already talked about with Transformers, because I think Hasbro’s pricing is creating a perfect environment for knockoffs and third-party companies.

If collectors start looking at the official product and saying, “Why am I paying this much for this?” they’re eventually going to find somebody willing to give them more for their money.

Power Rangers has a different problem, but I think it comes from the same mentality.

How much can we make from the brand while putting as little into it as possible?

And that is where Hasbro continues to lose me.

Then Hasbro Auctioned Off Power Rangers History

And then there’s the auction.

I originally remembered this happening in 2023, but it was actually November 18 and 19, 2024.

Hasbro and Heritage Auctions sold nearly 700 lots containing costumes, helmets, props, weapons, and other production materials covering more than 30 years of Power Rangers history.

The auction ultimately brought in around $3.3 million.

I still think that was ridiculous.

I understand selling duplicates.

I understand selling things that no longer have a practical use.

I understand archives cost money.

But when you’re supposedly trying to figure out the future of one of the longest-running children’s action franchises in television history, watching decades of physical production history disappear into private collections doesn’t exactly scream confidence in the future.

And now the expensive live-action reboot is gone too.

That’s why all these individual decisions start painting a picture for me.

Hasbro stopped making the toys themselves.

Hasbro licensed them to Playmates.

Hasbro auctioned off a massive amount of production material.

And now another company has walked away from producing the new television series because the economics of investing heavily in an IP owned by Hasbro didn’t make enough sense.

At some point, I have to ask:

What exactly is Hasbro willing to do with Power Rangers themselves?

What About Super Sentai?

There’s another part of this discussion that I’ve thought about for years, although I want to be careful with how I say this.

I’ve sometimes said that I think Power Rangers helped kill Super Sentai.

That’s probably too simple.

I can’t point to evidence and say Hasbro taking over Power Rangers directly caused Super Sentai to end.

There are way too many moving parts there.

What I do think is that the relationship between Power Rangers and Super Sentai has created missed opportunities for years.

Anime has become massively mainstream in the United States.

We’re watching anime movies get theatrical releases.

Crunchyroll has built an entire business around people wanting Japanese entertainment without somebody completely rebuilding it for an American audience.

So why couldn’t Super Sentai work the same way?

Give me subtitled Super Sentai.

Put it on Netflix.

Put it on Crunchyroll.

Dub it if you want an easier entry point for children.

But don’t rewrite the whole thing.

Don’t replace the music.

Don’t remove the Japanese culture.

Don’t pretend Japan isn’t Japan.

Just give me the show.

Maybe twenty or thirty years ago American television needed Power Rangers to make Super Sentai approachable.

I’m not convinced that’s true anymore.

And if Super Sentai eventually returns in some form, I would love to see somebody finally test that.

Because I think the audience is there now.

Final Thoughts

And that brings me back around to Disney+.

I don’t blame Disney for walking away.

If the reporting is accurate, somebody at Disney looked at what a high-end Power Rangers series would cost and then looked at what Disney would actually own when it was finished.

They still wouldn’t own Power Rangers.

Hasbro would.

And that’s the problem.

Hasbro can own the IP.

Hasbro can license the toys to Playmates.

Hasbro can license comics.

Hasbro can license television rights.

Hasbro can collect licensing fees.

But eventually somebody actually has to build something.

Somebody has to take a risk.

If Hasbro believes Power Rangers is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, then treat it like it’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Invest in it.

Help fund the television series.

Help build the franchise.

Create entertainment that makes children want Power Rangers toys again.

Create toys that make collectors excited about Power Rangers again.

Create comics.

Create games.

Create animation.

Do something.

Because right now it feels like Hasbro wants everybody else to build Power Rangers while Hasbro stands behind the counter collecting the licensing check.

And maybe that’s good business in the short term.

I’m not convinced it’s good brand management.

Power Rangers survived Saban.

It survived Disney.

It survived going back to Saban.

It survived changing networks, changing casts, changing countries, changing Sentai series, and thirty years of children growing up and introducing Power Rangers to their own children.

There is still something here.

I don’t believe Power Rangers is dead because people stopped caring about Power Rangers.

I think Power Rangers is sitting on the shelf because the company that owns it hasn’t figured out what it’s willing to spend to make people care again.

And if you’re asking another company to spend the money rebuilding your franchise while you keep ownership of the thing they’re rebuilding?

Eventually somebody is going to look at that deal and say no.

Disney just did.