Power Rangers Reboot Movie Will Be ‘Mature’ but ‘Playful’

IGN got a chance to interview Dean Israelite, the director of the upcoming Powers Ranger reboot. During the conversation, he was unable to explain much about the story but he did say that the tone of the film will be mature — possibly even dark — but “completely playful”.

If you ever watched the Power Rangers series when it was originally on the air the idea of a movie adaptation being “playful” makes a lot of sense. Despite some of the silly things that happened on screen, with large-scale battles involving giant mechs, some of the material was quite playful.

As for the more serious and mature tone, here’s what he had to say:

“[…] It needs to be completely playful, and it needs to be really fun and funny. But like Project Almanac, I hope it’s going to feel very grounded at the same time, and very contemporary and have a real edge to it, and a real gut to it. So I think it’s going to be a fun, joyful [movie] but one that feels completely grounded in a real world, with real characters going through real things.”

It sounds like overall, there’s going to be a more realistic, perhaps even gritty tone to it. Characters will be tied to events and problems in “a real world” as Israelite so eloquently put it.

Who’s Going to Be In the Movie?

Of course, just as important as the tone, story and writing of the film is who’s going to be picked to play the leading roles. We don’t know anything about the cast just yet, but Israelite hopes that things will start moving forward.

When asked if they would be announcing a cast anytime soon, he said:

“Yeah, I hope so. We’re just at the beginnings of that. We’re going to be shooting soon, so yes, I’m hoping news of that is going to come out in the next few months.”

As for who we might expect to see, it’s up in the air at this point. Personally, I’m hoping they draw inspiration from Adi Shankar’s fan version of Power Rangers, which cropped up on YouTube recently. Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica, Riddick) and James van der Beek star in the short.

Check it out: