Rebooting movies has now become the norm for Hollywood. Studios find it difficult to pass up the chance to reuse characters that already have fans willing to see a new story about them. It’s a double-edged sword though; rather than introducing new ideas to audiences, they’re rehashing old ones with better cosmetics. However, sometimes the original failed to live up to expectations to the extent that a reboot is simply necessary out of respect to the source material.

It wasn’t until Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins that the concept of superhero movie reboots really pierced popular culture. Nolan’s realistic and gritty take on the Caped Crusader cleansed the acrid aftertaste left by the travesty known as Batman and Robin. By the time The Dark Knight Trilogy was done, it cemented its place as the best superhero movie series ever, and basically gave the film industry permission to relaunch more titles.

Since then, we’ve seen a bunch of superhero movies getting reboots, to varying degrees of success. The Incredible Hulk starring Edward Norton was arguably better than all previous TV and movie incarnations. The new Dredd trounced Stallone’s version easily. In some cases, a TV rebirth was the key, such as in the case of Daredevil. However, we can’t forget that reboots can disappoint worse than their original counterparts – just ask the new Fantastic Four.

While I personally would rather see new superheroes and stories adapted for the big screen, sometimes a character has been done so terribly that a new attempt is warranted (We have to thank Ryan Reynolds and all of Deadpool’s fans for persevering in bringing his solo feature to life despite that horrible, horrible version in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.). Other times a character is just so beloved that we wouldn’t mind a fresh take.

Hit NEXT for a gallery of superhero movies that deserve a reboot.