'Percy Jackson' Showrunners In Talks To Take On 'Power Rangers' Reboot Series For Disney+

Jonathan E. Steinberg and Dan Shotz would write, produce and showrun the Hasbro production for the streamer and 20th Television

Hasbro’s attempt to reboot Power Rangers after sunsetting its original 30-year television series a year and a half ago five years into their ownership has gained traction again, and it’s landed in a place that’s hilarious. It would also be considered unbelievable if it weren’t for the rampant media consolidation and changing media landscape. Jonathan E. Steinberg and Dan Shotz, showrunners for Disney+’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians series are in talks to write, showrun and produce the new Power Rangers series, still a live action iteration for the streamer and 20th Television.

The development of the new series is part of Hasbro Entertainment’s ongoing strategy to “elevate storytelling and produce series based on Hasbro’s most iconic brands alongside the industry’s best talent, studios and distribution platforms”. Steinberg and Shotz are producing partners, serving as co-creators, executive producers and showrunners of the streamer’s Percy Jackson series based on Rick Riordan’s books. Its second season premieres in December and was just renewed for a third. The former developed FX’s The Old Man, starring Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow. Both series are 20th Television productions as it’s whom their company Quaker Moving Pictures has been under since 2019. It’s likely this choice is to achieve tonal similarity with their works. Insider Jinsakuu is reporting that it will be an original team design and not Mighty Morphin-based, and that the film plans with Paramount fell away because of cost, and this is the “cheaper” route.

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Last June, the first iteration of the reboot, born in an arrangement back in October 2020 that saw Jonathan Entwistle, creator of Netflix’s I Am Not Okay With This and co-creator of The End Of The F***ing World, in a position overseeing the development of both television and film projects as part of a “cinematic universe” at Netflix, ended. The writing was on the wall, as Entwistle became busy directing the Karate Kid franchise-unifying movie Karate Kid: Legends starring Ben Wang as well as the returning Ralph Macchio as Daniel LaRusso and Jackie Chan as Mr. Han, which releases on May 30. The collapse also probably coincided with the end of Jenny Klein’s two-year overall deal with since-sold eOne in June 2022 not only for that role, but developing genre- and drama-based content, expiring. Klein had come from being a story editor for Supernatural, and writing, showrunning, and executive producing the NBC miniseries The Thing About Pam. She would go on to write for Prime Video’s Daisy & the Six miniseries and serve as co-executive producer.

While Power Rangers was not a 20th Century Fox Television co-production in its juggernaut years on Fox Kids produced by Saban Entertainment, 20th Century Fox’s film division did distribute both films of that era, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie and Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie. Toward the end of that era, Saban Entertainment would be sold to The Walt Disney Company, who would move production of the television series to New Zealand after the tenth season Wild Force, where it would stay for the remainder of the continuity even after the franchise changed hands two more times. When they were producers for seven seasons and a reversioning, from 2003 to 2010, it aired on ABC Kids, ABC Family (now Freeform), and Toon Disney (departing when the network became Disney XD), the latter two largely on an action block that would quickly develop into Jetix. Thus it would be returning to Disney realm after over a decade, but now in a position more akin to Doctor Who’s current arrangements.

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Sources: The Wrap, Jinsakuu (1, 2)