{"id":590128,"date":"2026-04-06T23:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T23:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/590128\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T23:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T23:56:08","slug":"malcolm-in-the-middle-offered-dewey-buckets-of-money-to-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/590128\/","title":{"rendered":"Malcolm In The Middle offered Dewey “buckets of money” to return"},"content":{"rendered":"

Malcolm In The Middle: Life\u2019s Still Unfair, the revival miniseries of Fox\u2019s beloved mid-\u201900s sitcom, premieres on April 10 with one curious absence. Erik Per Sullivan will not return for the revival series, and instead, the role of Dewey will be played by Caleb Ellsworth-Clark<\/a>. Following a few scattered roles on TV and film in his post-Middle years, including appearing in the 2010 Joel Schumacher drama, Twelve, Sullivan retired from acting and retreated to a life of enjoying his residuals and studying Dickens.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Jane Kaczmarek in a new cast interview with The Guardian<\/a>, Sullivan \u201cturned down buckets of money\u201d to return for the revival. Despite the cash offer, Kaczmarek says he offered a simple, \u201cNo, thank you,\u201d in return. He\u2019s reportedly getting his master\u2019s at Harvard, where he studies Victorian literature<\/a> and is \u201can incredible student,\u201d says his TV mom. Previously, Cranston had already explained that Sullivan wasn\u2019t interested<\/a>, saying that Dewey Prime found it \u201cfantastic\u201d that the show was returning, but \u201c\u2018Oh, no, no, I don\u2019t want to do it.’\u201d A good question, like why was Dewey recast, is always worth asking again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sullivan\u2019s on-air siblings weren\u2019t as turned off by the buckets of cash Disney apparently offered them, despite having also quit acting. Frankie Muniz took up race car driving, olive oil bottling, and cyber-stalking Lizzo<\/a>; Justin Tyler Berfield, who plays Reese, launched a production company; and Christopher Masterson became a DJ. Nevertheless, the parents soldiered on, and Kaczmarek confirms that the whole reunion is basically happening because Bryan Cranston, who had \u201cbeen murdering so many people on other shows,\u201d found the idea of playing Hal again appealing. Cranston, more or less, confirms this, saying that he returned to a show where he gets covered in 60,000 crotch-stinging honey bees because he wanted to. \u201cIt was seven great years of my life\u2014in which I met the most wonderful people,\u201d Cranston said. \u201cThere\u2019s no better job than going to work and thinking of how to be funny.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Malcolm In The Middle: Life\u2019s Still Unfair, the revival miniseries of Fox\u2019s beloved mid-\u201900s sitcom, premieres on April…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-590128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}