Beloved movie/TV franchise characters being revived decades after the previous installment

I did but honestly couldn't remember exactly how big the reveal/twist was.

ive never seen the Maverick TV show, but it seemed like an a-ha moment

spoilers for the 1994 throwback wild-west con-artist film MAVERICK: in the last scene, James Garner is revealed not to be a lawman butting heads with Mel Gibson's Bret Maverick, but in fact his father, working in cahoots with him all along. i took this to mean that Gibson was playing TV's Maverick and that they cleverly found a way to use the original star in a major role - but it's certainly plausible that Garner is meant to be the original Maverick and that this film takes place thirty years after the show, in a part of the old west that hasn't changed too dramatically. sadly, no work was found for Roger Moore, who played the original replacement character "Beau Maverick."

cameos like that don't count

absolutely, I was following up Dr Casino with an example of how diligently widespread that sort of Pokemon approach to cameos has become