25 actors who revived popular characters after many years

Harrison Ford has seemingly gladly returned to play Indiana Jones a couple of times, including 2023’s upcoming fifth installment in the franchise. Then, he also begrudgingly returned for The Force Awakens to play Han Solo, perhaps to live up to his wishes of finally killing Han off.

The odd shelf life of Hocus Pocus gave us an unexpected return for an icon. Midler played Winifred Sanderson, the foremost of the three witch sisters in the Disney moved beloved by millennials. That film came out in 1993, and then in 2022, nostalgic thirtysomethings got a chance to see the Sandersons, Midler included, back in action in Hocus Pocus 2.

Roseanne ended its original run in 1997. We found out in the series finale that the final season had been a dream and that Goodman’s Dan Connor had died. Then, in 2018, the series was rebooted…and Dan was alive. Soon after that, Roseanne Barr was kicked off the show, and it reconfigured itself as The Connors. Barr is gone, but Goodman remains.

Zoolander was not a hit in 2001 but became a cult classic. Alas, some cult classics are best left alone. We got Zoolander 2 in 2016, but the movie felt completely flat, and all it managed to do was taint the legacy of the original.

Bergen won five Emmys for playing Murphy Brown in, well, Murphy Brown. That was over 10 seasons, ending in 1998. However, Dan Quayle was not safe because Murphy Brown was rebooted in 2018. This time, it didn’t really work. The reboot was canceled after one season.

Dumb and Dumber was one of Carrey’s three hit comedies that came out in 1994. There was a 2003 prequel, but it did not feature Carrey or Jeff Daniels. That dynamic duo did return in 2014 for Dumb and Dumber To, a movie that, there may already be a theme emerging, fell flat.

Wall Street won Douglas an Oscar in 1987, but it was not a movie anybody expected to have a sequel. Don’t tell that to Oliver Stone, though. He brought Gordon Gekko back in 2010 with Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, which at least gave us another entry in the world of funny sequel subtitles.

Macchio played Daniel LaRusso in three Karate Kid movies, the last of which came out in 1989. In 2018, Cobra Kai debuted, bringing back not only LaRusso but also William Zabka as Johnny Lawrence. It took a couple of seasons, but Cobra Kai became a hit.

Bell has set aside Veronica Mars and picked her back up several times. The show’s original run ended in 2007, and then she starred in a (middling) movie in 2017. Then, in 2019, the series was rebooted for one season, which was a better send-off for the character than the film.

They called it Twin Peaks: The Return for a reason. David Lynch’s cult series ended with the 1992 film Fire Walk With Me, which starred MacLachlan as Agent Cooper. Lynch returned to his world in 2017, which was as weird and polarizing as ever.

Messing is standing in for all four main characters from Will and Grace. The show was a big hit in its original run, with all four primary actors winning an Emmy. Will and Grace originally ended in 2006 and returned in 2017. This was a successful return, as the show ran for three more seasons before ending in 2020.

Newman first played “Fast Eddie” Felson in 1961’s The Hustler . He was a young movie star on the rise then. Martin Scorsese got Newman to play Felson again in The Color of Money, which came out in 1986. Returning to the role of the pool shark paid off for Newman, who won his only Oscar for the performance.

When Keanu played Ted Logan, he was a young actor excelling at playing a genial dumb guy. Then, he went ahead and became one of the biggest action stars in the world. And yet, he was willing to return to the role of Ted in Bill & Ted Face the Music, a 2020 movie that was a passion project for a few of the parties involved. It was almost 30 years between movies, but Reeves was dedicated enough to shave his beard for the role.

Smith starred in Bad Boys just as he was becoming a movie star, and he starred in Bad Boys II once his star started to wane. The sequel came out in 2003. After that, Smith’s bankability started to falter a bit more, so he and Martin Lawrence returned to the well in 2020 for Bad Boys for Life. It ended up the top movie at the domestic box office — owing to the huge asterisk of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Curtis just can’t stay away from the Halloween franchise. She was even in Halloween: Resurrection in 2002. While Curtis skipped the Rob Zombie films, she returned as Laurie Strode in the retconning Halloween in 2018, followed by Halloween Kills (2021) and Halloween Ends (2022).

In 2020, Saved by the Bell got a knowing, winking reboot. While there was a new cast of kids, we also saw Berkley return as Jessie Spano, now a counselor as Bayside. Mario Lopez also returned as A.C. Slater as a regular. Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Tiffani Theissen had a couple of cameos as Zack and Kelly, of course.

Gilmore Girls is a beloved show, so when it ended its original run in 2007, the notion of a return to the world of Stars Hollow was plausible, to be sure. Lorelei and Rory indeed returned in 2016 with Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. The four-part miniseries dropped on Netflix and caught us up with all that the Gilmores had been up to.

Fuller House saw a ton of returning faces from Full House. Even the dudes who played Nicky and Alex showed up! However, Sweetin was one of the main cast members of the sequel. Fuller House was a chance for Sweetin to play Stephanie Tanner as an adult, and as a woman who has had some rough times in her life, it was nice to see her back in the role.

Term limits did not stand in the way of Pullman. He played President Whitmore in 1996’s Independence Day. Twenty years later, Whitmore is no longer president in Independence Day: Resurgence, but Pullman returned for the sequel. So did Jeff Goldblum. Will Smith? Not so much.

You can’t look at the 2022 box office and not include Cruise. He returned as Maverick for Top Gun: Maverick, bringing the much-delayed sequel to the 1986 original to the big screen. It was worth the wait. Top Gun: Maverick ended up topping the domestic box office for 2022.

Speaking of 2022, Jim Cameron finally brought us back to the world of Pandora. All he needed to do was once again wait out technological advances and get bored of exploring the ocean. Avatar is the highest-grossing movie of all time, but we had to wait from 2009 until 2022 for Avatar: The Way of Water, which finally meant the return of Worthington as Jake Sully.

Blues Brothers 2000 came out, of course, in 1998. Hey, that’s still a sizable gap in terms of waiting after the 1980 original. Aykroyd returned as Elwood Blues, but John Belushi had tragically passed away and couldn’t return as Jake. Instead, Aykroyd was joined by John Goodman, of Roseanne fame.

Jurassic Park was a game-changing blockbuster, and in the intervening years, we saw Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm and Sam Neill as Dr. Alan Grant. However, Dern’s Dr. Ellie Satler was on the sidelines for a while. Then, all three appeared in 2022’s Jurassic World: Dominion, giving us the return of Dr. Satler to close out the film franchise.

In the 1990s, we got the debut of That ‘70s Show. Now, we have That ‘90s Show here in the 2020s. While much of the main cast of that show is cameoing, two of the leads of the new Netflix show are Smith and Debra Jo Rupp as Red and Kitty Foreman.

Larroquette won four Emmys in a row for playing Dan Fielding on Night Court, then stopped submitting his name for consideration. Night Court ended its original run in 1992 and has not had the syndication or streaming life of some other classic sitcoms. However, it is getting a reboot. Melissa Rauch is playing the daughter of Judge Harry Stone, but Larroquette is back as Fielding once again.