10 Actors Who Returned To Save Dying Movie Franchises

Of all the possible actors to top our list, there can be none more fitting than the star heroine of horror, Jaime Lee Curtis. The slasher film was effectively born with the original 1979 classic, with Curtis’ Laurie Strode a pivotal presence that producers of the series grossly underrated.

While Laurie Strode returned for the first sequel, she was not present for Halloween 3, although bizarrely neither was her nemesis Michael Myers. Our beloved villain returned for several increasingly mediocre sequels before Curtis made her first successful return to the series.

1998’s H20 proved to be a great return to form, with the battle between brother and sister back on in earnest, Curtis working wonderfully alongside a new young cast set to be carved up. The film was a box office success and much better received by critics, although Curtis’ Laurie was unfortunately killed off in a tacky opening sequence for the H20 sequel that followed. If that wasn’t bad enough, fans of the series were forced to sit through two Rob Zombie directed turkeys that placed gore in front of any sense of tension or thrills.

After a seven year hiatus, Curtis again returned to save the franchise again, with audiences instructed to ignore all previous sequels. It proved to be perhaps the best Halloween film yet, with real stakes, genuine scares and an epic finale, with Curtis playing a grizzled older Laurie to perfection.

To save a franchise once is a top effort, but to do it twice earns you top spot on this list.