Original Red Ranger, Austin St. John, Announces Return to Acting in New Film Role
For the original leader of the Power Rangers, it’s back to action.
Austin St. John, who portrayed the heroic, square-jawed Jason the Red Ranger in the original Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers and the Gold Ranger in Power Rangers Zeo has announced his first cinematic role in nearly two decades on Facebook.
The film is titled Survival’s End, a post-apocalyptic movie that Austin describes as “insane” with a “betrayal.” Vague, but OK. Crowdfunding has just begun and is on schedule to begin production later this year. (Indiegogo link here.)
From Austin St. John’s Facebook page:
“You guys know me as Austin St. John, who led the Power Rangers from the 1990s. You don’t know what I’ve been doing since then. I’ve been a medic. I’ve been overseas. I have led teams, I have worked with some of the greatest leaders in the military and non-military emergency medical communities. I have learned so much.”
He should have added “AND NOT ADULT FILMS,” because that needs to stop circulating. He dodged bullets overseas, stop thinking he boffed dudes on camera. (Which is not a bad thing, but he didn’t do it!)
Austin St. John has been growing a hunky beard these last few weeks, which I’m sure has tickled the fancy of anybody into the recent lumbersexual phenomenon. When he originally hinted at it, he clarified that it wasn’t for a return to Power Rangers so I expected it was a kind of apocalyptic, The Walking Dead/Book of Eli/I Am Legend kind of project. I was right! I should play the lottery this week.
In fact, I was watching last night’s phenomenal The Walking Dead season premiere and thought Austin specifically would be a great addition to the cast. He could go beard-to-beard with Andrew Lincoln then morph and stomp on walkers with the Tyrannozord.
It’s been a weird, sometimes unfortunate time recently for Power Rangers alumni. Jason David Frank, the original Green/White/Red/Red again/Black Ranger challenged WWE exile-turned-UFC fighter CM Punk. Rick Medina, another former Red Ranger, was arrested and released of all charges. And Amy Jo Johnson, the original Pink Ranger who kickstarted your puberty, busked on a street in Canada in costume. All of these have been strange and kind of depressing (but that last one was awesome!). So it’s nice to hear some nice, good news coming from a former teenager with attitude.
Austin St. John has become something of a friend to Geekscape. I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing him on camera at this past Power MorphiCon…
…and he shared my article about his response to Rick Medina’s arrest on his Instagram page.
http://instagram.com/p/ypbHSvA66y/?modal=true
Stay tuned with Geekscape and we’ll let you know about Austin St. John’s epic return as soon as we know more. You can donate to the film on Indiegogo and you can like Austin St. John’s Facebook. And ours too. All of that works.
