Disney Pulls the Plug on Its POWER RANGERS Series Over Reported Budget Issues
Disney’s Power Rangers reboot apparently won’t even get the chance to shout “It’s Morphin Time.”
The planned live-action series for Disney+ has reportedly been scrapped, bringing another attempt to revive the long-running superhero franchise to an early end.
The project had some promising talent involved and a massive piece of pop culture to work with, but it sounds like the numbers simply didn’t make sense for Disney.
According to Deadline, Disney has decided not to move forward with the live-action Power Rangers series, with budget concerns reportedly playing a major role in the decision.
That isn’t particularly difficult to understand when you consider what a modern Power Rangers series would require. Giant monsters, elaborate suits, explosive battles, Zords, and all the visual effects needed to sell that insanity on a streaming-series scale aren’t exactly cheap.
There’s another important factor here as well. Disney doesn’t own Power Rangers. The franchise belongs to Hasbro, which also controls major properties such as Barbie and Masters of the Universe.
Pouring a superhero-sized production budget into an IP owned by another company could make the financial equation considerably less attractive, especially in an era when studios and streaming services are taking a much harder look at production costs.
The new Power Rangers series was officially announced in March 2025, though development reportedly stretched back to 2024. Details about what the show would actually look like remained pretty scarce throughout its development.
Jonathan E. Steinberg and Dan Shotz were attached as writers and executive producers. The pair are best known for their work as producers and showrunners on Disney+’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians, which currently has a third season in development.
Power Rangers is a property that feels built for another television reinvention, particularly with a generation of fans who grew up watching the franchise now old enough to introduce it to their own kids.
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers exploded onto television in 1993 and turned a group of color-coded heroes fighting increasingly ridiculous monsters into a pop culture phenomenon.
What followed was an enormous television run that eventually stretched across 30 seasons, multiple incarnations, toys, collectibles, and plenty of other merchandise.
The Rangers also made several trips to movie theaters, with the most recent attempt arriving in 2017 with Power Rangers.
That film was designed to be much more than a one-and-done adventure. Unfortunately, audiences didn’t show up in the numbers necessary to make those larger plans happen.
The initial plan was reportedly to make three additional Power Rangers films, with Lionsgate hoping the property could become another major franchise in the vein of The Hunger Games. Obviously, those sequels never materialized.
Now the Disney+ series appears to have joined the growing pile of abandoned Power Rangers projects, and that’s a shame because television still seems like the natural home for these characters.
There’s something wonderfully ridiculous about Power Rangers when it fully embraces what it is. Teenagers in brightly colored superhero suits, martial arts battles, giant robots, monsters that grow to skyscraper size, and enough sparks flying from every punch to violate several workplace safety regulations.
Give the right creative team enough money and freedom, and there’s still a lot of fun to be had with this franchise. The problem, apparently, is the “enough money” part.
For now, Disney’s live-action Power Rangers series looks dead before cameras ever started rolling. Considering how recognizable the franchise remains more than three decades after Mighty Morphin Power Rangers first arrived, it would be surprising if this is the last attempt to bring the Rangers back.
Someone will eventually yell “It’s Morphin Time” again. It just apparently won’t be on Disney+.