Buffy the Vampire Slayer concluded in 2003 after seven seasons on the air, and remains a beloved and influential show to this day. There's been talk over the years of rebooting Buffy, with original series creator Joss Whedon working with showrunner Monica Owusu-Breen on a new show a while back. But that idea fizzled out a couple of years ago, probably because Whedon was accused of toxic behavior on his sets and has since been excommunicated from Hollywood.
But lately there have been signs of something stirring, with original series star Sarah Michelle Gellar coming around to the idea of a revival. “I always used to say no because it’s in its bubble, and it’s so perfect,” she said last month. "But watching [recent reboot shows] Sex And The City and seeing Dexter, and realizing there are ways to do it, definitely does get your mind thinking, ‘Well, maybe.'”
She may have known more than she let on, as Variety now reports that Hulu is very close to giving a pilot order to a new Buffy the Vampire Slayer series, although we don't know if it will be called that. Like the previous attempt at a reboot, this show would be about a new vampire slayer, with Gellar playing a supporting role.
Buffy creator Joss Whedon would not be involved with the reboot
Whedon is obviously nowhere near this project, but a bunch of other notable names are. Nora Zuckerman and Lila Zuckerman are on board to write and serve as showrunners; they're best known for showrunning the Peacock series Poker Face, in addition to working on Fringe, Suits and Haven. Even more impressively, Chloé Zhao is on board to direct; Zhao won a Best Directing Oscar for her 2020 film Nomadland, which also won Best Picture. After that she sold out a little by directing the Marvel movie Eternals, but hey, a director can't survive on micro-budget critical darlings alone.
There are also several producers being grandfathered in because they worked on the original series or even the 1992 Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie starring Kristy Swanson; the most notable is Dolly Parton, who had a hand in the franchise very early on, believe it or not. If this revival happens, they should really find a way to put Parton's name in the credits, even if she hasn't contributed much. That'll draw in someone.
Meanwhile, Hulu has several revival series series either on the air or on the way, including Futurama, King of the Hill and Prison Break. I'm surprised by how far along this Buffy revival seems to be. After Joss Whedon went down in flames I assumed it would be a while, if ever, before we heard something new, and now it sounds like we could get news tomorrow.
As for what the story would be about, that's anybody's guess. In the series finale of the original show, Buffy Summers and her friends fixed it so that every girl in the world with the potential to one day gain the powers of a vampire slayer suddenly did have those powers; before, the way it worked was that there was only one slayer at a time, and a new one was chosen when the last one died. A new show could run with that. Whedon actually wrote a comic book continuation of the Buffy story, but that mostly focused on Buffy herself. If they want to start fresh with this series, they'll probably look elsewhere for inspiration.
There's also no word on if other cast members from the original show might turn up, like Alyson Hannigan or David Boreanaz. But hey, after this news, I'm not counting anything out.
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