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Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Sarah Michelle Gellar says she fought an “uphill battle” since “day one” to get Hulu reboot series New Sunnydale made.
In a new interview with People, Gellar broke down the decision to cancel the show after the pilot and how she heard the news. The timing sounds absolutely diabolical; she was attending the world premiere of Ready or Not 2: Here I Come at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, while New Sunnydale director Chloé Zhao was about to attend the Academy Awards, where her film Hamnet had been nominated for eight Oscars.
New Sunnydale and Ready or Not 2 are both Searchlight productions, and Gellar says they didn’t see the cancellation coming either.
“I got the call as we were stepping onto the stage for the premiere of [Searchlight’s] own movie,” she explained. “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 alleges that the cancellation decision was ultimately made by one guy who just wasn’t a 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.”
She added, “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.”
Gellar says Buffy’s fans were “the only reason we were doing this show in the first place. We were doing it because everybody loves it. How do you do a show that’s beloved with someone that doesn’t love it?”
Deadline’s sources have reported that the exec in question is Disney Television Group President Craig Erwich. They also report that the pilot was even rewritten to address Hulu’s concerns that it “played too young” and lacked enough Buffy Summers. The new pilot script had been well received but didn’t seem good enough for Erwich, who has been leading development and strategy for Hulu’s original series since 2014. He has overseen the success of shows like The Handmaid’s Tale and Only Murders in the Building, and was previously involved in developing hits like 24, House, and Prison Break during his time at FOX.
New Sunnydale will not have the opportunity to be shopped elsewhere, as 20th Television, where Erwich has recently been given oversight, now owns the Buffy IP.
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