Timothy Bottoms, who has the distinction of playing George W. Bush as a buffoon in the Comedy Central Parker/Stone spoof “That’s My Bush,” again playing him for comedic effect in “Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course” and then playing him seriously in the made-for-TV flick “DC 9/11.”
Brian Dunleavy and Akrim Tamiroff as McGinty and Boss in both The Great McGinty and The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek.
Bobby Watson played Hitler in at least nine different movies.
James Cagney played George M. Cohan in both Yankee Doodle Dandy and The Seven Little Foys.
Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy played the Duke brothers in Trading Places and Coming to America (the latter a joke cameo).
George Lazenby played James Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and in the TV movie The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E. (the latter credited as “JB”)
Margaret Rutherford played Miss Jane Marple in a series of films and also appeared as a character cameo in The Alphabet Murders.
It’s the same franchise (although a reboot), so I wouldn’t consider it “fair game” under the “unrelated” part. Just like I wouldn’t consider Bela Lugosi’s playing Dracula in both Dracula and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein – they’re both Universal franchise movies.
But John Carradine gets considered because he played Drac in both House of FRankenstein and in Billy the Kid meets Dracula.
Or Sean Connery playing James Bond in the Eon Bond films and in Never Say Never Again.
George Lazenby is another case – the one where They Can’t Use the Name Because of Copyright Restrictions. Otherwise Lugosi would get more notices for Dracula – but they couldn’t, so he used a different nsame in Mark of the Vampire and Return of the Vampire.
Roger Moore, by the way, looked as if he was supposed to be James Bond in the Cannonball Run series, and Timothy Dalton was supposed to be him in Looney Tunes: Back in Action. But theyt didn’t/couldn’t use the name.
Others:
George C. Scott as George S. Patton in Patton and The Last Days of Patton
Alastair Sim as Scrooge in two different versions (by different companies) of A Christmas Carol,
Michael Parks played the character Earl McGraw in Planet Terror,Deathproof,Kill Bill Vol.1 and From Dusk til Dawn(He is the Cop in the convenience store in the beginning of the movie)
IMHO, the fact that they’re in different continuities is enough to make them unrelated series. If Jim Carrey showed up in Nolan’s next Batman film as the Riddler, would you have accepted him?