Has anyone else noticed this, or I am just noticing it more because I like revolvers so much? Did the revolver really ever leave pop culture?
Popular culture is about new and trendy. Most new and trendy handguns are semi-auto pistols.
There is a few big-bore that are unique enough to make it into popular culture, but for the most part they have been replaced.
There is nothing wrong with a wheelgun, and many were made more rugged than your typical semi-auto today.
However in most regards they are now limited to the outdoors, and for calibers too powerful to chamber in a reasonably sized auto.
The public is generally naive. They follow what the police or military is doing, even if the reasons the police or military is doing it includes variables not a problem for a civilian. (Like using an AR in 5.56 because the ammo is lighter, while the weight of the ammo hardly matters for a civilian. Or choosing other designs in a caliber with almost no recoil so it will be better on select fire like many subguns or PDWs, but new select fire designs will not be available to civilians.)
Whether it is choosing the type of sidearm the police are carrying, or the popularity of the AR once adopted by the military.
The population gravitates towards what the "experts" are using. Or at least who they perceive as the experts. The population views police and military as experts on guns, so the firearm designs they use are most popular.
They have not been using revolvers since the 1980s.
The S&W .500 entered popular culture in modern times for one reason, it is far more powerful than anything in a semi.
Considering that .500 is the legal limit in the US, and they won't have a S&W .600 coming out, there will not be an even more powerful trendy revolver likely to receive similar pop culture attention.
Pop culture targets youth. It targets fashion, it targets trends, it targets sex appeal, etc.
It targets the largest market it can sell or appeal to with the smallest argument.
The largest market with disposable income is always teens-thirties in any growing population (and those with the worst spending habits, willing to go into debt for trivial things). There is always more young people in a growing population. Greatest number of young children, slightly less teens, slightly less 20s, less 30s, etc etc The young children don't have an income though.
(Of course with the occasional targeting of the older mid life crisis age bracket as that bracket has more money to make large purchases like some luxury or sports car or other item they cannot sell to the younger crowd.)
You can convince someone in a young age group they need to buy something just by telling them it is the latest greatest thing, and last season's is out of style, or anyone that knows what they are doing is using it. That to be current or effective they need to buy a new product. Just by being new it automatically has an advantage.
This means that what is a couple years old is hardly talked about at all, as it moves over for something new.
It is more about perception than facts, and this transfers over into movies and other forms of entertainment.
Those same perceptions lead to selection of things like which guns are in the latest movies or tv shows.
To remain in popular culture something new has to be constantly created or updated, because the attention span of pop culture is very low. This would require constant revolver fads to keep revolvers there.
Not going to happen.
You can have constant semi-auto fads and trends, but the revolver market is not really the trend conscious crowd. Not since the 1970 to early 80's.
Instead it is outdoorsmen who need something for larger animals, some into cowboy action shooting or wild west type culture, handgun hunters, or older gentlemen who grew up when revolvers were trendy and fashionable and they simply stuck with them or have a nostalgia related fondness.
That is not to say thier is not exceptions, but popular culture is not about the exceptions, it is about what is new and "popular".
). I seem to have noticed lately that they are making somewhat of a come back into popular imagination. 
