Tim Allen blames ‘stuck’ ‘Home Improvement’ reboot on ‘personality problems’ amongst the cast

Tim Allen revealed why a possible “Home Improvement” reboot hasn’t come to fruition.

“They keep talking about how it could move forward, but they get stuck [because] there are some personality problems right now with the boys,” the “Toy Story” star explained in an US Weekly interview published Wednesday.

Allen said the actors who played his on-screen sons — Zachery Ty Bryan, Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Taran Noah Smith — have “their own issues.”

As for the concept of the reboot, Allen said he “always thought it would be cool if it was a story” about the three Taylor sons.

“That’s a little challenging right now, to put it mildly,” he noted.

“Home Improvement” aired on ABC from 1991 to 1999, starring Allen as Tim Taylor; Patricia Richardson as Tim’s wife, Jill; and Bryan, Thomas and Smith as the couple’s three children.

Bryan, 44, was sentenced to 16 months in a California jail in February for a 2024 DUI arrest.

In March, Bryan received a 19-month prison sentence in Oregon for violating his domestic violence probation. He had been placed on 36 months of probation following a domestic violence conviction in 2023.

Bryan was previously accused of attacking on-and-off girlfriend Johnnie Faye Cartwright — with whom he shares multiple children — and charged with felony strangulation, menacing, assault and harassment in 2020.

At the time, he was only convicted of menacing and assault.

Meanwhile, Smith, 42, quit acting after “Home Improvement.” He now works as a sea recovery technician at SpaceX.

And Thomas, 44, opted out of “Home Improvement” in 1998 to focus on academics, graduating from Columbia University in 2010. 

He had a series of small TV roles in the 2000s including a 2013 guest appearance on Allen’s show “Last Man Standing.”

Since then, Thomas has been seen in public only a handful of times.

Allen previously pitched his idea for a “Home Improvement” spinoff in 2023, suggesting the show could be about his character’s grandchildren.

“It’s funny, one of the conversations we’ve had recently is how weird it would be if ‘Home Improvement’ would be about the kids’ kids,” he told The Messenger at the time. “Like if all of them had children, and I’m a grandparent. ‘Home Re-Improvement’ or something like that. It’s come up.”

But Richardson, 76, shot down Allen’s idea on the “Back to the Best” podcast in March 2024, admitting she thought it was “weird” Allen publicly said the whole cast was on board for a spinoff.

“He never asked me and he never asked Jonathan, who I talk to,” she claimed. “I called Jonathan one day, I said, ‘Has he asked you about this?’ And he went, ‘No, why is he going around telling everybody that we’re all on board when he hasn’t talked to you or me. I think that’s weird.’”

Richardson also pointed out that Bryan “is now a felon,” Smith “hasn’t acted since he left the show” and Taylor is “not really interested in acting” anymore.

 “And we don’t have Wilson,” Richardson added, referring to the Taylor family’s quirky neighbor played by Earl Hindman, who died in 2003 at age 61.

If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or text START to 88788.