Sarah Michelle Gellar has shared the shocking reason behind the cancellation of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot and its future!
Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans were getting excited over the planned Hulu reboot of the beloved genre series. The pedigree was fantastic: Oscar winner Chloé Zhao (an avowed fan of the show) would direct the pilot, with Sarah Michelle Gellar reprising her role as an older Buffy Summers acting as mentor to a younger Slayer played by Ryan Kiera Armstrong.
All signs pointed to the series being greenlit. Instead, on March 14, Gellar shared the surprising news that Hulu was not moving forward with the reboot. While she was quiet on the reasons at the time, Gellar has since opened up to People about the surprising reasons the plug was pulled on the show — and who's to blame.
Gellar stated that she was upset not just at the show’s axing but also at the timing. The order to drop the Buffy reboot happened right as she was about to do promotion for her new thriller Ready or Not 2, made by Searchlight. Not to mention, it was a day before Zhao was due to attend the Academy Awards, where she was nominated for Best Director for Hamnet (while Zhao didn’t win, Hamnet star Jessie Buckley did earn the Best Actress Oscar).
“No one saw this coming, including the head of Searchlight [Pictures]. And I got the call as we were stepping onto stage for the premiere of their own movie," Gellar said. "And it’s also the weekend of Chloé going to the Oscars as a best director nominee for Hamnet. For them to call us on the Friday of what should have been Chloé's victory lap for an incredible film, and my world premiere of something that I worked very hard for is...That says something.”
Gellar’s words are upsetting enough, and that's before she targeted one person in particular for why Buffy was killed off like this.
Who’s to blame for the Buffy revival being killed?
According to Gellar, there’s one executive at Hulu who’s to blame for this. She won’t name him (a Deadline report hints it was Disney Television Group President Craig Erwich), but it sounds as if it’s someone who wasn’t even a Buffy fan!
“We had an executive on our show who was not only not a fan of the original, but was proud to constantly remind us that he had never seen the entirety of the series and how it wasn't for him," Gellar revealed. "That's very hard when you're taking a property that is as beloved as Buffy, not just to the world, but to me and Chloé. So that tells you the uphill battle that we had been fighting since day one, when your executive is literally proud to tell you that he didn't watch it.”
It’s almost like a scene out of a Hollywood satire: Someone who’s openly proud of disliking a TV show is somehow put in charge of it, and so had no problem ending it after one attempt at a pilot. In fairness, some reports indicate that the pilot did have issues, with claims that Zhao’s artistic style didn’t mesh with the material.
That said, it’s appalling that the show fell apart like this. For someone who never watched the original series to say this “wasn’t for him” and then deny its legion of fans a chance to see it is appalling. Someone who, if not a fan, at least understands the property and its popularity would have been a better choice to give the green light or not.
Gellar summed it up: “But the fans, they were the only reason we were doing this show in the first place. We were doing it because everybody loves it. So how do you do a show that's beloved with someone that doesn't love it?"
It’s unlikely the show can be picked up by another streamer as Disney/Hulu owns the rights. Gellar said she and Zhao were both very disappointed, but Gellar pushed the director to walk the Oscars red carpet anyway. She was also grateful to various fans for their support, as well as co-star David Boreanaz. She then gave a final farewell message.
"But Buffy is timeless. And the one thing I do want all these fans to know is that legacy is still there and this doesn't diminish it. It doesn't change it. That legacy is still there — for them."
Gellar is dead right, as one executive can’t destroy Buffy’s legacy and how much it meant to so many of its fans. It will live on for a long time to come.