Film series that have been rebooted multiple times

George Lucas changed film with his first Star Wars trilogy. Then, he tried it again many years later with his prequels. Those…didn’t go great. However, it did not end the world of Star Wars. We got another reboot — this time, with all new characters and no George Lucas. This isn’t the end for Star Wars, either. There is always the possibility for another reboot.

Television has brought us several different iterations of Star Trek, each of which could be considered a reboot. This has impacted the movie world as well. First, there were the films with the cast of the original TV series. Then, Patrick Stewart and the “TNG” crew got an opportunity. After that, we got a film-only take on Star Trek, with three films starring Chris Pine as Captain Kirk. Star Trek: Discovery premiered on Paramount Plus in 2017.

No movie series gets rebooted quite like Bond. Each time they recast Bond, we get a reboot. There have already been six different James Bonds in the series, and a seventh will be coming in time. From Sean Connery to Daniel Craig, we have gotten a lot of takes on Britain’s top spy.

The original Ghostbusters is an all-time classic ‘80s comedy, and it got a pretty good sequel. Then, after many years, they rebooted Ghostbusters with a female cast, with a few of the original cast members showing up. It didn’t quite take, but it wasn’t the end of the world. Ghostbusters: Afterlife seems more directly tied to the original film, but with a bunch of new characters. They ain’t afraid of no reboot.

We’ll consider all the Toho films one series, though you could make an argument that they’ve rebooted the film series in Japan as well. However, there are also two different takes on the character in America. The Matthew Broderick version was a total flop, but they brought Godzilla back again and did better this time.

Halloween began as a straightforward, cheap, slasher flick but led to a whole film series. After a long run, the series rebooted under Rob Zombie for a couple of movies. Then, a new reboot happened that also uncanonized every movie save for the John Carpenter original. Halloween Kills arrived in 2021, and Jamie Lee Curtis confirmed that October 2022's Halloween Ends would be the last installment of the legendary, decades-long franchise.

After two movies, they kept making Home Alone films without Kevin McAllister or the Wet Bandits, Harry and Marv. Then, there were two made-for-TV movies, which we could count. What definitely counts, though, is Home Sweet Home Alone, which at the very least has Rob Delaney and Ellie Kemper as the bumbling criminals.

We’ve had a few different takes on Spider-Man now. It all began with Tobey Maguire, who got three films directed by Sam Raimi. There was supposed to be a fourth, but it didn’t happen. Instead, we got a reboot with Andrew Garfield under the Amazing Spider-Man name. That didn’t work out, and then Marvel was able to include Spidey in the MCU. This opened the door to a new take on the character, with Tom Holland now in the role.

Only Batman gets rebooted as often as Spider-Man, it seems. Hey, we could go back to the Adam West movie in the ‘60s, but in truth, it doesn’t feel like the Tim Burton films were really an attempt to “reboot” those. The two Joel Schumacher films? Those were reboots. Then, the Christopher Nolan films were definitely an attempt to reboot the franchise, one that worked incredibly well. In 2022, we got another take on the Caped Crusader from Robert Pattinson in The Batman, directed by Matt Reeves. We didn’t even mention Ben Affleck’s time in the DC Universe as Batman.

First, we got three movies about the heroes in a half-shell where they were guys in rubber suits. They were successful in the ‘90s, but when technology changed, weird puppet suits wouldn’t cut it. That led to a CGI film in 2007 called TMNT, but it kind of flopped. Several years later, Michael Bay’s production company made movies that mixed CGI and live-action for two movies. Naturally, Megan Fox was cast as April O’Neill.

The original Planet of the Apes series starts with an iconic twist ending and then gets weirder from there. They blew up Earth, and then they continued the series! Eventually, it would end, and Tim Burton would take a crack many years later at basically remaking the original. It was a disaster. It’s bad even for a Mark Wahlberg movie. Undeterred, Hollywood would revisit the world of apes evolving to challenge humans, but in prequel form this time. It worked out well enough they made three.

The first three Terminator films are all of a piece. Then, they made Terminator: Salvation, which really switched things up and rebooted the franchise. It didn’t take, so they did a pseudo reboot/un-reboot by making it all about Arnold Schwarzenegger again for Genisys. After that, we arguably got a reboot again with Dark Fate, which brought Linda Hamilton out of retirement to try and recapture the glory of the first two movies.

It’s kind of hard to handle the idea of rebooting the Universal monsters. Like, has Frankenstein been rebooted? Dracula? For us, the Mummy movies feel the most rebooted. There were the early Universal films, then the Brendan Fraser films, and then finally, that Tom Cruise flop that killed the “Dark Universe” plans.

Is this a little bit of, “Hey, different people keep playing Jack Ryan, so that means reboots, right?” Sure, but it also felt like a bit of a reboot each time. In particular, the Chris Pine-led Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit definitely felt like a reboot. Pine was the fourth person to play the Tom Clancy character in a film.

There’s never been an A Star is Born series, but it’s a movie that keeps getting reimagined and, well, reborn. We have now seen four different takes on the story in film — the latest of which is a very successful take with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. Will they do it a fifth time? We’d put odds on it.

The original King Kong is a classic. He would show up sometimes in other films, including his original fight with Godzilla. In the ‘70s, they remade the original with mixed results. Peter Jackson did it again with a lush, overlong film. Recently, we got a true series for the great ape with Kong: Skull Island and King Kong vs. Godzilla. Remember, Kong bows to no one.

You could make the argument that the Child’s Play franchise wasn’t rebooted until the 2019 version that sort of reworked the series entirely. We argue that the first reboot happened before that, namely, after Child’s Play 3. The next film is called The Bride of Chucky, and it started a four-movie series that feels a lot more like horror comedy films than a continuation of the original series.

We may be waiting a bit into the direct-to-video and made-for-TV film world here, but there were several Scooby-Doo films of one kind or another before the live-action films in the 2000s. After that, they went back to making direct-to-video films again. Eventually, another animated version came to the big screen in Scoob!, which also tried to start a Hanna-Barbera film universe in a way.

They made three Vacation films in the ‘80s. They didn't return to the well until Vegas Vacation in 1997. That was a big enough break to feel like a reboot. Plus, once again, the kids were recast. They made a spinoff sequel to Christmas Vacation starring Cousin Eddie for TV, but there was definitely a reboot in 2015 when Ed Helms played an adult version of Rusty with his own family.

The original Pink Panther stars David Niven as a gentleman cat burglar. It’s true. Peter Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau is a secondary character. He proceeded to become the main character in the series. They tried a reboot with Alan Arkin as Clouseau instead of Sellers but then returned to Sellers. Then, there’s Curse of the Pink Panther, which came out after Sellers’ death. This was followed in the ‘90s by Son of the Pink Panther, with Roberto Benigni playing the original Clouseau’s son. Eventually, we got those two Steve Martin films where he stepped into Sellers’ shoes. By the way, the "Pink Panther" in the original is a diamond. Somehow, it became the titular character of a movie series.