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Going back to the well is nothing new for Hollywood. There have been reboots almost since the dawn of cinema more than a century ago. But it's important to realize that reboots are not the same thing as sequels. Take for example, James Bond. Although multiple actors have portrayed 007, every film up to Die Another Day acted as if the same James Bond had lived through all of his adventures. Casino Royale was a true reboot because it introduced Daniel Craig's rookie Bond, and he had a five-film storyline that came to a conclusion in No Time To Die. Presumably the next James Bond movie will have to be another reboot after that.
So why does Hollywood keep rebooting some of its most-famous franchises? Because they're largely considered safe bets. Although some reboots have spectacularly failed, enough of them have succeeded that it's still the preferred course of action for risk-averse studios. Some of the reboots have even given us great movies, which is another reason audiences tend to give them a chance. If we've learned anything about the movie industry, it's that we should always expect to see even more reboots in the future. In the meantime, these are some of the most rebooted movies in Hollywood history.
Number of reboots: 2
Remember when we said sequels aren't the same thing as reboots? Terminator may be the exception. Everything from The Terminator through Terminator Salvation fit together chronologically, even if certain details about the future were changed. Then Terminator Genisys made things really confusing by blowing up the timeline and introducing a new version of Sarah Connor who had been raised by a Terminator to protect herself from her own son, John Connor, who had been transformed into a hybrid Terminator.
Terminator: Dark Fate rebooted things again by revealing that John was murdered when he was still a child, which negated the events of three previous sequels. In this sequel, Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor returns to the franchise to rediscover her own role in the future without John. But audiences largely stayed away and the film was considered a flop. It might be a while before someone tries to make another Terminator flick.
Number of reboots: 2
Tim Burton's 2001 Planet of the Apes is a prime example of a reboot that just doesn’t work. The special effects were technically sound, but the updates to the story fell flat on the screen and it didn't get any sequels. Rupert Wyatt's 2011 reboot, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, didn't fall into the same trap as Burton's reboot. Instead of rehashing the events of the 1968 original film, Rise of the Planet of the Apes depicted the ape uprising in the near-future with a fantastic performance by Andy Serkis as Caesar, the first ape who stood up against humanity's cruelty towards his brethren. It was followed by two sequels, both of which were directed by Matt Reeves.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes maintains the continuity started by Wyatt's film. And since it was one of the most-successful movies of this summer, there probably won’t be another reboot anytime soon.
Number of reboots: 2
Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan is a little tricky. The case can be made that Alec Baldwin's Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October is the same version of the character played by Harrison Ford in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. But Ben Affleck's Jack Ryan in The Sum of All Fears is clearly a different incarnation of the character, which means it was a reboot.
Affleck was done-in-one after that film. But 12 years later, Chris Pine took up the title role in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. John Krasinski's Jack Ryan series on Prime Video wasn't on the big screen, so it doesn’t count towards this total. The success of that incarnation may put off another cinematic Jack Ryan reboot for at least a few years.
Number of reboots: 2
Be honest: Have you ever actually seen Dolph Lundgren's 1989 Punisher movie? That was from an era where the Punisher couldn’t even have his iconic skull armor because the filmmakers thought that embracing the source material was a mistake. Thomas Jane was seemingly a better fit for the role in 2004's Punisher movie, but that film is all over the place tonally. The late Ray Stevenson's turn as the title character in Punisher: War Zone was by far the most true to the source that the character has ever been on the big screen.
Fans are also firmly behind Jon Bernthal's Punisher in the MCU, but he has yet to appear in a movie. However, Bernthal will be back in Daredevil: Born Again next year on Disney+.
Number of reboots: 2, with a third reboot in 2025
Roger Corman's low-budget 1994 Fantastic Four movie was never officially released, but it escaped into the wild and it has been widely available as a bootleg for decades. The 2005 Fantastic Four film and its 2007 sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, were the most successful movies in the franchise to date. But not successful enough to get a third film. Instead, Josh Trank's infamous Fantastic Four reboot was instantly rejected by fans in 2015.
In 2025, the Fantastic Four are getting yet another do-over in the MCU. With Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Joseph Quinn in the title roles, we expect The Fantastic Four will do very well.
Number of reboots: 3
Although Nicholas Hammond's Spider-Man did appear on the big screen, his movies were originally shot for television. Sam Raimi's Spider-Man film starring Tobey Maguire was the first real movie for Marvel’s most-famous hero. Following Maguire's trilogy, Andrew Garfield headlined two Amazing Spider-Man flicks, and Tom Holland had his own Spider-Man trilogy in the MCU.
Unlike the other franchises on this list, Holland, Garfield, and Maguire all got to portray the same character in the same movie in Spider-Man: No Way Home. The anticipation of that team-up helped make No Way Home Sony's most-successful film to date. Holland is supposedly still going to play Spider-Man again, but few details are known about the next sequel. As for the Spider-Verse movies, the adventures of Miles Morales and the Spider-Men and Spider-Women is its own sort of reboot that has the ability to touch all corners of the multiverse.
Number of reboots: 3
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles may be rebooted more often on television, but they’ve had a few reboots in film as well. After the first TMNT live-action trilogy from 1990 to 1993, the animated TMNT film in 2007 presented a bit more comic-accurate take on the Turtles. But that movie didn't get a sequel.
Michael Bay produced a new TMNT reboot in 2014 with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its 2017 sequel, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. But since Out of the Shadows wasn’t a hit, the live-action turtles are currently between reboots. Now, the animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and its upcoming sequel are carrying the cinematic torch with a much younger take on the main characters.
Number of reboots: 4
Halloween is one of the few franchises that has had to ignore its own sequels to keep going. Here's how it all plays out. Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a standalone flick that had nothing to do with Halloween or Halloween II beyond sharing the same unofficial holiday. In fact, in the world of Season of the Witch, the Halloween movie franchise exists and Michael Myers can be seen on a TV screen at one point.
Halloween IV through Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers were the true sequels to the first two films. Or at least they were until Halloween H20: 20 Years Later and Halloween: Resurrection had a soft reboot that completely ignored those movies and brought back Jamie Lee Curtis. Then there was Rob Zombie's complete Halloween reboot in 2007, which only lasted for two movies. Finally, Curtis came back again for three more movies starting in 2018 with Halloween, which once again gave the franchise a soft reboot. In the final installment, Halloween Kills, Curtis' Laurie Strode finally kills Michael Myers after all these decades.
Number of reboots: 4
Although The Mummy is one of the original Universal Monsters movie franchises, it hasn't had as many reboots as its contemporaries. There were only six films in the first incarnation of the films, which starred iconic horror actors such as Boris Karloff, Tom Tyler, Lon Chaney Jr., and Eddie Parker. Only Tyler and Chaney played the same Mummy, while Karloff and Parker's mummies were meant to be separate characters. Hammer Films then had its own line of Mummy movies from 1959 to 1971.
The 1999 reboot of The Mummy with Brendan Fraser as the heroic Rick O'Connell is the most famous set of films in this franchise. The second movie, 2001's The Mummy Returns, even spawned off a separate franchise, The Scorpion King, for Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, but he only headlined a single Scorpion King film before the series went direct-to-video.
Tom Cruise's 2017 reboot of The Mummy was meant to kick off the Dark Universe continuity of the Universal Monsters including Dracula and Frankenstein. However, it was soundly rejected by audiences and this shared universe was dead after only a single film.
Number of reboots: 4, with a fifth reboot coming in 2025
There have been plenty of werewolf movies that don't fall under the banner of The Wolf Man. But Lon Chaney Jr.'s portrayal of Larry Talbot/the Wolf Man across six films further solidified his status as a horror icon. Since then, most of the Wolf Man's return appearances have been one-off movies, including 2010's The Wolfman starring Benicio del Toro in the title role.
However, Universal never gives up on its monsters for long. In January 2025, Saw director Leigh Whannell will release yet another reboot, Wolf Man, with Christopher Abbott stepping into the part of Larry Talbot.
Number of reboots: 4, with a fifth reboot coming in 2025
Kirk Alyn was the first Superman on screen, and then George Reeves took over the role before he eventually reprised his part for Adventures of Superman on TV. But nearly five decades after the release of Superman, the late Christopher Reeve is still the actor who is most strongly associated with the role--so much so that 2006's Superman Returns pretended that Brandon Routh's Superman was the same one that was portrayed by Reeve. That film just softly rebooted the franchise by ignoring the events of Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. That was probably for the best.
Henry Cavill only had a single solo film as Superman in Man of Steel, but he appeared three times afterwards in the DC Extended Universe, including a cameo at the end of Black Adam. Unfortunately for Cavill, his return after a long hiatus from the role was canceled (at least for now) when director James Gunn made plans to introduce a younger Superman in the DCU. That's why David Corenswet will appear in the title role of next year's Superman, the first live-action installment of a brand-new DC continuity.
Number of reboots: 7
The first Godzilla movie arrived in 1954, and the Japanese franchise has always played a little fast and loose with what is and isn't a reboot. Many of the sequels acted as if the prior films had never happened, while some even featured callbacks to the original flick. Shin Godzilla and Godzilla Minus One were both standalone reboots, while the 1998 American Godzilla was its own thing... that very few people liked. And because the anime Godizlla movies were released theatrically in Japan, they count as another reboot here.
Legendary's 2014 reboot of Godzilla has proven to be very successful. It spawned the MonsterVerse, and even the most-recent film, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, was a hit.
Number of reboots: 8
There were a few Batmen on the big screen before Michael Keaton famously took on the role in 1989's Batman. However, Keaton's successors, Val Kilmer and George Clooney, were technically meant to be the same Batman as Keaton's. It wasn't until Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins in 2005 that the franchise was truly rebooted with Christian Bale in the lead.
Following Bale's films, Ben Affleck took over the role in the DC Extended Universe movies, even though his planned solo flick fell through. Instead, Robert Pattinson became the reigning Bat in The Batman and its upcoming sequel. That said, James Gunn also plans to introduce another new Batman in The Brave and the Bold movie.
Number of reboots: 33, approximately
Although the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle tends to contest the idea that Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain, the great detective is perhaps one of the few fictional characters who can contend with the top two franchises on this list. There was a very short film, Sherlock Holmes Baffled, in 1900, and the character also appeared in silent movies before making the leap to sound.
Basil Rathbone, Peter Cushing, Michael Caine, Robert Downey Jr., and Ian McKellen are just a small selection of actors who have left their mark as Holmes. More recently, Henry Cavill's Sherlock Holmes was a supporting character in Netflix's Enola Holmes movies. But rest assured: The spotlight will eventually be put back on Holmes himself.
Number of reboots: 52, approximately
The most famous Frankenstein film to date is still the 1931 adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel starring Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's Monster under what would become the Universal Monsters banner. However, there had already been three films and two previous reboots before Karloff became forever identified with his iconic role. But by the fourth Universal film, The Ghost of Frankenstein, Lon Chaney Jr. took over Karloff's part as Frankenstein's Monster. Although in the next movie, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Chaney portrayed the Wolf Man while Bela Lugosi portrayed the Monster. Karloff returned in House of Frankenstein as Dr. Gustav Niemann, while Chaney played the Monster again.
Following the original Universal Pictures run, numerous Frankenstein reboots followed including the seven film series produced by Hammer Films starting with The Curse of Frankenstein in 1957. Since then, there have been a lot of one-off remakes of Frankenstein, with Robert De Niro and Aaron Eckhart among the actors who portrayed the creature.
Number of reboots: 63, approximately
When it comes to reboots, few can compete with Count Dracula. Bram Stoker's iconic vampire has been adapted numerous times, most notably in 1931's Dracula starring Bela Lugosi. Several actors have followed in Lugosi's footsteps, including Christopher Lee, Gary Oldman, and Nicolas Cage.
Even the upcoming reboot of Nosferatu starring Bill Skarsgård is technically based on an unauthorized adaptation of Dracula. This vampire just won't stay down.
