On certain Internet sites, Reacher's screen incarnation is a subject of hot debate, and Hollywood's A-list barely enters into it.

For instance, Parker's reputation as a ladykiller isn't corroborated by this screen incarnation.

BLOOD RELATIVES Of all the movie monsters, none can claim as many screen incarnations as the vampire.

She is the only actress to have appeared in all three screen incarnations of Fame, playing Lydia Grant in both the 1980 film and 1982 television series and playing the school principal in the 2009 remake.

Based on the third of five unnervingly deadpan Tom Ripley thrillers by the pulp minimalist Patricia Highsmith, "Ripley's Game" marks the fourth - and arguably best - screen incarnation of the enigmatic antihero.

Adapted for the movies several times, its most famous screen incarnation is as "His Girl Friday," released in 1940.

Even the names of assorted screen incarnations or stage replacements (including Barbra Streisand, Betty Grable, Ginger Rogers and Ethel Merman, Dollys all) are dropped in the rapid-fire introductory catalogue song.

Sean Axmaker of Parallax View said, "John Boorman's magnificent and magical Excalibur is, to my mind, the greatest and the richest of screen incarnation of the oft-told tale."

It is the earliest known film to feature Arthur Conan Doyle's detective character Sherlock Holmes, albeit in a form unlike that of later screen incarnations.

Now deep into its fourth decade (if you count its television and screen incarnations) the science-fiction franchise, like the indestructible James Bond series, keeps chugging along inside its own cheerfully nostalgic time warp.