10 Actors Who Returned To Save Dying Movie Franchises

Of all the entries on this list, this is perhaps the most intriguing, as the former lead actress of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise returned not as her initial character Nancy, but as herself. In perhaps the most meta film ever created, Wes Craven's New Nightmare saw the actors acting as fictionalised versions of themselves, including an on screen appearance from the Director himself.

The movie finds Langenkamp at the centre of a new nightmare, interacting with the likes of Craven and Robert Englund, before finding some of Nancy's courage to help save the day. It was a head trip, but it was the best fun we'd had in the Nightmare franchise for quite some time.

The Nightmare franchise had been rapidly declining in the years before this entry, with Freddie Krueger transforming from horrifying to nothing more than a joke, a lack of a decent nemesis really hurting. The Final Nightmare was particularly poor, panned by critics and fans alike.

The New Nightmare wasn't a box office smash, but restored a lot of lost credibility to the series, the Freddie franchise once more viewed in a positive light. The franchise was able to find a new lease of life from this success, with the entertaining Freddy v Jason movies, before undoing their good work with the poor 2010 reboot with Englund and Langenkamp both missing.

Here's hoping the producers have seen the first entry on our list and will bring Englund and Langenkamp back one more time.