A Home Improvement reboot has been discussed, but Tim Allen says it is not happening anytime soon. The reason comes down to two of his former costars.
In an interview with Us Weekly, Allen pointed directly to Zachery Ty Bryan and Jonathan Taylor Thomas, who played his sons Brad and Randy on the original series, as the central obstacle. According to Screen Rant, Allen said the following:
"They keep talking about how it could move forward, but they get stuck [because] there are some personality problems right now with the boys. They've got their own issues. I always thought it would be cool if it was a story about them. That's a little challenging right now, to put it mildly."
Allen did not elaborate further, but the situations involving both actors are publicly known.
Bryan has faced a series of legal problems since 2020. He was arrested for a DUI in late 2020 and was arrested for the sixth time in five years in December 2025. This past February, he was sentenced to 16 months in prison after pleading guilty to DUI in California. In March, he received an additional 19 months in an Oregon prison after admitting to three probation violations.
Thomas stepped away from acting entirely in 2006. He returned briefly in the mid-2010s to appear on a few episodes of Allen's show Last Man Standing. In 2024, Patricia Richardson, who played Jill Taylor on the original series, said that Thomas "is not really interested in acting, he wants to direct and write."
Taran Noah Smith, who played the youngest son Mark Taylor, also left acting in 1999. Earl Hindman, who played the Taylors' neighbor Wilson, died in 2003.
That leaves Richard Karn and Debbie Dunning, who played Al Borland and Heidi Keppert on the show, as the only remaining series regulars who could potentially join Allen and Richardson in a revival. Dunning retired from acting in 2006 but did appear as a guest star alongside Richardson and Karn in the season 2 premiere of Allen's current sitcom, Shifting Gears.
Home Improvement ran for eight seasons on ABC from 1991 to 1999. The series is currently available for streaming.
