Could Xena: Warrior Princess be joining the reboot trend? It sounds like Sam Raimi and others are trying to make it happen!
Entertainment Weekly recently published an oral history of the show with Lawless, creator Sam Raimi and others taking part. Naturally, the idea of a reboot or sequel series came up with Lawless surprised it hasn’t happened yet.
“I gotta tell you, I don’t know why they haven’t been able to do it. What I keep hearing is you have to do it as well or better than the original, and they keep feeling like it’s not as good or better or totally different. It might need to be just totally different.”
Genre icon Bruce Campbell, who had a recurring role on the show as master thief Autolycus, added that “the themes are very relevant to today. Loyalty, friendship, complicated relationships. Xena said it’s okay to have complicated relationships in an otherwise action-centered show.”
That leads to more push for a reboot, and it may be happening!
This September marks a major anniversary for the fantasy and action genre. It was on Sept. 4, 1995, that Xena: Warrior Princess debuted in syndication. A spin-off of the hit Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, the show followed Lucy Lawless in the title role of a warlord trying to redeem herself as a heroine.
The show ended after six seasons with Xena sacrificing herself to save thousands of souls. The series has retained its audience over the decades, with Lawless becoming a genre favorite with roles in Battlestar Galactica, Spartacus, Ash vs Evil Dead, and more. Somehow it’s avoided the “reboot” trend, but that may be changing!
From humble beginnings, the show became a monster hit, loved for its action, humor, and defying conventions with episodes like a musical or a documentary. It was also one of the first shows of its kind, pushing a female heroine as the lead. Not to mention the relationship between Xena and ally Gabrielle (Renee O’Connor) became fodder for a new fandom and challenged the boundaries of TV at the time.
Is a Xena reboot happening? It's complicated
Co-creator Rob Tapert confirmed the news that there are plans for a reboot, although his vision is an entirely new take with new actresses in the leads.
“We are trying to launch a new version of Xena. It would not be the story of Xena and Gabrielle with Lucy and Renee. It would be like they did with Star Trek, a reimagining of that universe. Whatever it’s gonna be, it will be different, which is exciting. Thirty years later, it has to be different. But for a feature, now 30 years on, I’m interested in doing that. I don’t know when and where it is, but they’re gonna see a script somewhere in the next three to six months, and one can only hope.”
Obviously, a fresh start free of the original show's mythology seems the best way to go. Given how the fantasy genre has changed over the last thirty years, a grittier Xena is fitting as well as being able to delve more into her dark past and relationship with Gabrielle.
Yet there are risks to this approach. While going a different way may be easier, to many fans, Lawless is Xena and a new actress has the daunting task of winning folks over. There’s also how the 1990s cheese and camp is a key reason the show has remained so loved. Trying to be more of a dead-serious fantasy show can only drive fans away.
Ted Raimi, who played Joxer, shared his thoughts on how this may work better in the “sequel reboot” fashion.
“To do it well, in my opinion, you’d have to do it brilliantly like what the Karate Kid did with Cobra Kai. Which is, they’re just older and it’s a whole new bunch of problems they have. Because there’s no way that anyone would wanna see me at my age jumping around and doing those goofy faces. If you redid it in that way, I think that it could be done.”
Raimi does bring up a good point about how a new series that still uses the original actors can be the best. A good comparison would be another Raimi project, Ash vs Evil Dead, which brought back Campbell’s famous demon-fighter, older, not quite wiser, while still combating demons with younger allies. Lawless is still in fine shape to play an older Xena with O’Connor, with a storyline perhaps resurrecting Xena to train a new heroine to take up her legacy.
These are preliminary plans, and it's unlikely they’d come to be for a while. However, it says much that fans would love to see Xena return after so long, and a reminder of how groundbreaking this incredible show was.
Xena: Warrior Princess streaming on Prime Video.