Upcoming Movie Reboots And Remakes You May Not Know Are In The Works

Rebooting, remaking, or completely reimagining a once-beloved piece of intellectual property can be a tricky endeavor. The world has seen its share of reboots of old IP that are little more than low-effort examples of Hollywood shaking down an already tapped-out franchise for easy money. A prime example is the 2017 adaptation of "Flatliners," a remake so bad that The Australian called it "a good example of how the gene pool doesn't necessarily become stronger with time."

But while the worst movie remakes can feel like watered-down versions of the original, movies like "Ocean's Eleven" (2001), "The Fly" (1986), and "Dawn of the Dead" (2004) continue to remind us that at its best, a quality remake brings a fresh perspective and vision to a franchise. While not every reimagining or so-called "legacy sequel" can be as good as "Mad Max: Fury Road" or Denis Villeneuve's "Dune," the upcoming crop of remakes and reboots looks promising.

The better part of a century has passed since the first Superman comic rolled out in 1938. Starring Kirk Alyn as the Man of Steel, Columbia Pictures' 15-part 1948 serial would be the franchise's first live-action adaptation — but it certainly wouldn't be the last. Since then, the last son of Krypton has made quite a few big-screen appearances, including the 1951 B-movie "Superman and the Mole Men" starring George Reeves, the Christopher Reeve era beginning in 1978, the Brandon Routh-starring "Superman Returns," and Henry Cavill's "Man of Steel" era beginning in 2013. And that's to say nothing of small-screen iterations like "Smallville" and "Lois and Clark."

As part of DC's most recent efforts to keep up with Marvel's popularity, the franchise has a Superman reboot on the way from director James Gunn, with a theatrical release date set for July 11, 2025. Gunn already has plenty of experience in the superhero genre, with directorial credits that include the three "Guardians of the Galaxy" movies for Marvel as well as DC's "The Suicide Squad." In this soft reboot, which wrapped filming in July 2024, Superman will be around 25 years old and still working to find his place in the world as an adopted human with an otherworldly heritage. The film stars David Corenswet as Superman, Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor, and Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane.

The Sean Connery-starring 1986 film "Highlander" imagines a world where some humans are born with a gift called "the Quickening" that transforms them into immortals when they die unnatural and violent deaths. As the only way to kill them is by beheading, the world's immortals face off in a battle spanning the ages — with the ultimate prize being the all-powerful energy of all the world's immortals. Several sequels followed, with the most recent coming out in 2007. The story was continued in the popular 1992 syndicated show, "Highlander: The Series," starring Adrian Paul, which lasted six seasons before it ended. Another short-lived spinoff series, "Highlander: The Raven," aired in syndication in 1998.

Since then, at least one adaptation seems to have languished in development hell before eventually getting dropped. In 2009, "Fast and Furious" director Justin Lin was connected to a "Highlander" reboot, with "Twilight" screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg brought on to take a stab at the project in 2011.

Fortunately for fans of the franchise, it was announced in 2023 that "Highlander" was getting a $100 million reboot from Lionsgate, with Henry Cavill starring as the eponymous Scot and "John Wick" director Chad Stahelski at the helm. The new production will be a prequel and is set to begin filming in January 2025, for a possible 2026 release. Speaking of the film at CinemaCon in 2024, Cavill teased that the movie will delve deep into "Highlander" lore.

A fantasy franchise built around a 1980s toy should almost have no right to have worldbuilding as complex and well-developed as "Masters of the Universe," the sword-and-planet franchise encompassing "He-Man" and "She-Ra." But since their 1982 creation, the beefy golden boy superhero alter-ego of Prince Adam and his female counterpart and twin She-Ra have spawned their fair share of comic books, animated TV shows, and a film — even if the film was an absolute bomb.

Starring Dolph Lundgren as He-Man, while featuring a pre-"Friends" Courteney Cox and a pre-"Star Trek: Voyager" Robert Duncan McNeill, the film was perhaps best characterized by a Variety review as a "'Conan'-'Star Wars' hybrid ripoff." But with the more recent success of the Netflix animated series "She-Ra and the Princesses of Power" and Kevin Smith's animated Netflix series "Masters of the Universe: Revelation," the franchise is getting another chance to shine in an upcoming Amazon-MGM live-action production after several failed attempts at a "Masters of the Universe" film reboot.

The new movie will star Nicholas Galitzine as He-Man, Alison Brie as Skeletor's evil witch crony Evil-Lyn, and Camila Mendes as Teela, with Travis Knight on board to direct the upcoming superhero fantasy. Chris Butler, who previously worked with Knight on "ParaNorman" and "Kubo and the Two Strings," is co-writing the script for the production, which is currently scheduled for theatrical release on June 5, 2026.

With its endless stream of meme-able moments and hilarious performances from the likes of Tim Curry, Michael McKean, Christopher Lloyd, Lesley Ann Warren, and Martin Mull, "Clue" is essential 1980s movie viewing these days. Even though it's considered a cult classic today, the board game-inspired film performed rather poorly when it first came out. But it didn't take long for folks to warm up to the film — so much so that it eventually spawned a nationally-run stage adaptation and homages on "Family Guy," "Psych," "CSI: NY," "Odd Squad," and "Adventure Time."

Attempts at a "Clue" reboot have been fizzling out since 2009, when Gore Verbinski, director of "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "The Ring," was connected to an adaptation. Hasbro's efforts to shop the project bounced from Universal to 20th Century Fox before eventually landing with Sony. Although Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman were both connected to the production at one point, both have moved on to other projects. 

In September 2024, "Barbarian" director Zach Cregger was reportedly in talks about signing on to direct, while "Army of the Dead" screenwriter Shay Hatten was on board to pen the script. But Cregger may have already moved on to another Sony production, leaving the film's future and several key details — like who will direct and star in it — very much up in the air as of fall 2024, even if the project still seems to be moving forward. 

Another remake that's seemingly been languishing in development hell for ages is a big-screen adaptation of the 1970s spy-fi action superhero series "The Six Million Dollar Man." Starring Lee Majors as Colonel Steve Austin, the original show followed an astronaut who gets a completely bionic overhaul after a NASA test flight leaves him badly injured. Left with superhuman abilities thanks to his fancy new cybernetic implants, Austin goes to work for a top-secret government agency.

The popular series ran for five seasons and led to the three-season 1976 spinoff "The Bionic Woman," as well as a handful of made-for-TV movies, so it makes sense that TV execs would be eager to wring a little more magic from the IP. A 2007 remake of "Bionic Woman" seemed promising, but its eight episodes met with critical disdain before it was canceled.

Although several attempts at a reboot of the original show have failed to emerge, Mark Wahlberg says he's still committed to bringing the franchise back. Wahlberg, who has been attached to the project since 2014, gave an update in 2024, telling ComicBook, "I have one superhero movie in mind, and it's 'The Six Billion Dollar Man,' [formerly] known as 'The Six Million Dollar Man,' gone up due to inflation."

Adapting the choose-your-own-adventure world of most video games into films can prove a tricky endeavor, which is perhaps why so many video game movies end up as box office bombs. For fans of the massively popular Japanese zombie horror game "Resident Evil," adapting the story into a full-length feature film has always been a tall order to fill. For the uninitiated, the film series to date draws on Alice in Wonderland motifs in a gritty biopunk world, where the Umbrella Corporation's biogenetics lab accidentally releases a zombie virus with apocalyptic implications underneath Raccoon City.

With a mixed but largely profitable box office performance, the seven live-action "Resident Evil" films, six of which star Milla Jovovich as the amnesiac hero Alice, have amassed a serious cult following. Netflix's 2022 reboot attempted to harness the magic with a separate storyline starring the late, great Lance Reddick, but it was ultimately canceled after only a season. The series was much more faithful than the film adaptations, but it ultimately fell flat with audiences.

Now there's hope for fans of the original films, who would love to see the worldbuilding more connected to the game franchise. Although it's still very much in the rumor phase, "Barbarian" director Zach Cregger may now be closer to reimagining that world in a new "Resident Evil" reboot, having allegedly passed up a chance to work on the new "Clue" film to focus on "Resident Evil" instead.

When the 1986 musical comedy "Little Shop of Horrors" came out — based on the off-Broadway show and 1960 dark comedy horror flick — it was an instant hit thanks in no small part to the hilarious performances of Rick Moranis and Steve Martin. Both versions follow the abjectly nerdy, put-upon florist shop worker Seymour Krelborn (Moranis), who is schlepping his way through life despite a cruel boss and a hopeless crush on his pretty coworker, Audrey (Ellen Greene). When Seymour finds a mysterious plant after a solar eclipse that folks come from everywhere to see, his luck improves — except for the pesky little fact that the plant demands an ever-increasing diet of human flesh.

The original source material is getting another reimagining as the "Little Shop of Halloween Horrors," with insiders saying that this adaptation will share more in common with the original film than its musical offspring. The film, which was scheduled to begin production in the fall of 2024, will be directed by horror-comedy legend Joe Dante, best known for "Gremlins" and "The Burbs," and is intended to potentially launch a new franchise.

Fans of Todd McFarlane's comic book antihero Spawn have been waiting ages to see their favorite franchise rebooted onscreen. And while it seems they might need to wait a little bit longer, McFarlane says there is hope the project will be moving forward in the future. The Spawn storyline integrates demonic and supernatural elements into the tale of a deceased CIA agent who strikes a Faustian deal to become a demon-infused vigilante.

Efforts to launch a sequel to the original 1997 film have been stuck in development hell for decades. By 2017, plans for a Blumhouse production were supposedly underway with Jamie Foxx on board as the lead. But somewhere between the pandemic, the strikes, and the usual Hollywood process, that hasn't panned out thus far.

The good news is that the ball still seems to be rolling, with McFarlane revealing that "Joker" writer Scott Silver and others have been hard at work on the script. McFarlane told ComicBook that he feels confident about where that script, which features the working title "King Spawn," is headed. "There's a script but the writers are, they're not quite sort of satisfied with their own work, which is what all of us creative people are," he said. Keeping with a trend set by recent productions like "Deadpool and Wolverine," "King Spawn" will be an R-rated superhero film. 

"Blade" is Marvel's supernatural superhero story about a dhampir — a creature that is half human, half vampire, or in the "Blade" universe, a superhuman with the best traits of a vampire but few of the toxic ones. The original film, which was adapted from a 1973 Marvel character, was released in 1998 and starred Wesley Snipes as the dhampir in question, a vampire-fighting superhero named Blade. Snipes reprised the role in several sequels and most recently, with an appearance in the 2024 Marvel film "Deadpool and Wolverine."

Rumors about a new "Blade" reboot or sequel began circulating in 2013, when it was revealed that Marvel had generated a new script for the franchise. Marvel made it official in 2019, announced at San Diego Comic-Con that a new "Blade:" movie starring Mahershala Ali was in development.

Unfortunately, the project has faced numerous setbacks, including multiple scripts and two different directors coming and going. Addressing those delays to Deadline in June 2024, costar Mia Goth said, "They want to make a great movie. That's the sense that I get from them and that feels good." The film is currently scheduled for a November 7, 2025 release date, but it's likely that date could be bumped since the production has yet to start filming.

Director Mike Flanagan has built a cult following through the years with a long stream of creepy supernatural horror films like "Absentia," "Oculus," "Before I Wake," "Ouija: Origin of Evil," and "Doctor Sleep," along with limited series like "The Haunting of Hill House," "Midnight Mass," and "The Fall of the House of Usher." With Flanagan considered one of the best horror filmmakers currently working, it's hard to imagine a better director for a Blumhouse reboot of "The Exorcist."

The news follows Universal's $400 million deal to secure the rights to make an "Exorcist" trilogy, with the studio originally enlisting "Halloween" filmmaker David Gordon Green to direct them. When the first film in that trilogy, 2023's "The Exorcist: Believer," proved a box office disappointment, the studio shifting gears, putting Flanagan on the job instead.

If his other works are any indication, Flanagan's appreciation for the "Exorcist" franchise may be the missing piece that's needed for the quality reboot fans have been missing. As Flanagan told Deadline, "'The Exorcist' is one of the reasons I became a filmmaker, and it is an honor to have the chance to try something fresh, bold, and terrifying within its universe." The film is slated for theatrical release in March 2026.

Some of the most amazing horror movies are successful even though they're made on shoestring budgets. But the kind of stripped-down storytelling that came with the film's initial $35,000 cost is part of what made "The Blair Witch Project" such a success. And who better to revive that magic than Jason Blum, the filmmaker who built his reputation making low-budget horror films like "The Purge" and "Paranormal Activity"?

Announcing the project in an April 2024 press release, Lionsgate revealed Blum will be teaming up with producer Roy Lee of Vertigo Entertainment, whose many production credits include "The Ring," the 2016 adaptation of "The Exorcist," and the 2024 Max adaptation of "'Salem's Lot." For his part, Blum seems thrilled to be connected to the project. "I don't think there would have been a 'Paranormal Activity' had there not first been a 'Blair Witch,'" Blum stated, "so this feels like a truly special opportunity and I'm excited to see where it leads." 

The original film's three stars also hope to be included in the production process. In an April 2024 Facebook post on behalf of the actors, citing earlier failed reboots, Joshua Leonard wrote, "As the insiders who created the Blair Witch and have been listening to what fans love and want for 25 years, we're your single greatest, yet thus-far unutilized secret-weapon!"