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Last weekend came the surprise announcement that Hulu has reportedly decided not to move forward with its planned part revival/part sequel series to the iconic 1990s show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”.
The star of the 1990s “Buffy” series, actress Sarah Michelle Gellar, was slated to return to her Buffy Summers role, which would be in a supporting capacity this time, with the focus more on a new Slayer – a 16-year-old high-schooler named Nova (Ryan Kiera Armstrong).
“Hamnet” director Chloe Zhao spearheaded the project and directed the pilot for the series last Summer. The trades indicated the pilot was ‘not perfect’ and Zhao may not have been the right fit.
In the days since, the situation around that scrapping has gotten quite a bit murkier. On Monday, Gellar told People that “nobody saw this coming” regarding Hulu passing on the pilot, and pointed out how she and Zhao “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.”
Things have taken another turn now as Variety has obtained a shooting draft for the show’s pilot episode, written by sisters Nora and Lilla Zuckerman, and have gone into why the streamer may have passed on it.
They indicate Gellar’s Buffy is barely in it, getting only one line in a cameo at the end. Most of it revolves around the formation of the new ‘Scooby Gang’ alongside brainy introvert Nova during a Renaissance Faire-like celebration in the new Sunnydale. Meanwhile, the vampires in the buried Hellmouth have been awakened.
The trade also indicates a recent rewrite, which featured more Buffy and a note to age the show up more, wasn’t good enough and so Hulu pulled the plug before spending further. Their sources also say Zhao’s skills as a director didn’t lend themselves to an exposition-heavy TV pilot.
On Wednesday, a Disney Entertainment Television spokesperson sent a statement to the trade saying: “Our decision not to move forward with a series order is not a reflection of our respect and admiration for the creative team.”
News of the streamer passing was bad timing as Gellar received the news just as she was taking the stage for the SXSW premiere of “Ready or Not 2: Here I Come”. Gellar appeared on SiriusXM’s Page Six Radio on Wednesday (via THR) and said a version of the Buffy reboot pilot script is making the rounds online and she hopes fans avoid reading it as “it’s not actually correct. That stuff is really unfortunate.”
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