Arne Olsen, the screenwriter of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995), has died at the age of 64. Olsen passed away on Saturday, April 4th, in Vancouver, Canada, from complications related to cancer. His wife, Dianne Olsen, announced his passing to Deadline. He is survived by two children, Ryan and Alyssa Olsen.
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Olsen was born and raised in Vancouver before he moved to Los Angeles at the age of 21, hoping to pursue a career in screenwriting. He enrolled at the American Film Institute, graduating in 1987; by 1988, he had his first screenwriting credit, the Dolph Lundgren Soviet action flick, Red Scorpion (and its sequel). He followed that with the erotic thriller Black Ice, the cult-classic Burt Reynolds buddy-comedy Cop & 1/2, the sci-fi/action B-movie Final Round, and Don Bluth’s cult-classic animated film, Thumbelina. Then came his big breakout opportunity, with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie. The film was released when the Power Rangers TV series was at the height of its popularity; it made over $66 million at the box office, against a budget of $15 million.
More importantly, the big-screen adaptation upped the production values of the import show and pushed Power Rangers lore and iconography into the mainstream, establishing a much wider fandom that has only grown bigger and/or more dedicated in the years since. Olsen was cemented in the franchise’s Hall of Fame for making the most epic Power Rangers story fans had seen (to that point), and MMPR:TM remains one of the franchise’s biggest achievements.
After Power Rangers, Olsen continued to have a modest career in Hollywood, writing scripts for films and TV movies, including All Dogs Go to Heaven 2, and a 2017 TV movie reboot Cop and a Half: New Recruit.
R.I.P., Arne Olsen. The Power Rangers community and the larger movie community will miss him and thank him for his creative contributions. We send our condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues in their time of mourning.
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