Genre Relaunch

So, some work had the gall to be a Genre Killer in some fashion. But then some work comes along and manages to revitalize that entire genre! That of course would be the Genre Relaunch. Commonalities in a relaunch include Reconstruction, a George Lucas Throwback, a Retool, or being an exceptionally good work.


 * This happened at least twice in the Game Show genre:
 * Jeopardy! helped re-popularized quiz-type game shows, which were previously thought dead after the rigging scandals of the 1950s. In fact, the show's signature "answer and question" format was inspired by a discussion between creator Merv Griffin and his wife about those very scandals. Between the 1950s and Jeopardy!'s debut, most game shows were either Panel Games or very low-stakes parlor games such as Password.
 * After a rather dormant period in the late 1990s, the genre got another major reboot in 1999 with the success of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. The show revitalized the entire genre and was the Trope Maker for many game show elements in use today — All or Nothing money ladders, Lifelines, dramatic sets and music, Commercial Break Cliffhangers and of course, massive payoffs.
 * As mentioned on the Genre Killer page, the once great genre of British telefantasy was pretty much killed by Crime Traveller (some might argue that it was killed by the cancellation of Doctor Who, and Crime Traveller was just a death rattle). Since Doctor Who's revival in 2005 showed that there's still a vast audience for SF&F, we've had Primeval, Merlin, Life On Mars, Ashes to Ashes, Torchwood, Being Human (UK), the Discworld TV movies...
 * Moulin Rouge brought back the movie musical after the disaster that was Hello, Dolly!.
 * The updated X-Men film franchise brought redemption to the superhero movie industry after the travesty of the Schumacher Batman films.
 * Titles such as Ace Attorney and the Telltale Games Sam and Max Freelance Police Retool helped restart the popularity of Adventure Games in America after roughly a decade of dormancy. Note that this genre was never dead overseas, however; it largely mutated into genres such as Visual Novels.
 * Nintendo and the NES single-handedly brought the home video game console market back from the dead, after The Great Video Game Crash of 1983.
 * Thrash Metal had a resurgence in the mid 2000's on the backs of bands like Evile and Municipal Waste.
 * Depending on who you ask, the strategy RPG genre was revived by either Final Fantasy Tactics Advance or Disgaea, two games that came out in summer of 2003.
 * Kingdom Come pretty much revived the Silver Age super hero.
 * The 2d fighting game genre was in decline until the release of Street Fighter IV and Blaz Blue in 2009.
 * The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise made pirates fun for the twenty-first century (although its influence has mostly been in literature rather than in more films).
 * The Disaster Movie genre was left for dead by 1980, but experienced a resurgence in 1996 with Roland Emmerich's Independence Day.
 * 3D movies have had this a few times - the most recent in the 2000s, first with IMAX 3D, then animated flicks such as The Polar Express, and culminating in 2009's Avatar.