Sarah Michelle Gellar is sharpening her wooden stakes in preparation for a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot.
A follow-up series starring the 47-year-old actress as Buffy Summers is nearing a pilot order from Hulu, Us Weekly can confirm. The revived show is described as, “The next chapter in the Buffyverse.”
The show will be directed by Oscar winner Chloé Zhao, who is also an executive director under her Book of Shadows production banner. Nora Zuckerman and Lilla Zuckerman are attached to the project as writers, showrunners and executive producers.
Gellar — who played vampire slayer Buffy on the original series from 1997 to 2003 — is planning to reprise her role. The revival, however, is said to be about a new slayer so Gellar would not be the lead. Instead, she’d have a recurring role, per Variety, which was one of the first outlets to report the news.
Gellar will also be an executive producer alongside original Buffy EPs Gail Berman, Fran Kuzui and Kaz Kuzui via Suite B, Us can confirm. Dolly Parton is also an executive producer on the pilot after her Sandollar company was part of the original project. (Hulu and 20th Television had no comment on the news.)
Buffy creator Joss Whedon is not involved in the refreshed series, according to Deadline, following a series of misconduct allegations.
In 2021, Whedon, 60, was accused by Charisma Carpenter of creating “hostile and toxic work environments” on both Buffy and its spinoff, Angel.
“While he found his misconduct amusing, it only severed to intensify my performance anxiety, disempower me, and alienate me from my peers,” Carpenter, who played Cordelia Chase on both shows, claimed in a lengthy social media statement that February. “The disturbing incidents triggered a chronic physical condition from which I still suffer. It is with a beating, heavy heart that I say I coped in isolation and, at times, destructively.”
Whedon was eventually accused by nearly a dozen people associated with the Buffy universe of misconduct. He responded to the allegations in January 2022, confessing that he had been “not mannerly” with Carpenter on set. He alleged that other than that, “Most of my experiences with Charisma were delightful and charming.”
Gellar showed her support for Carpenter in 2021, releasing a statement that disassociated her from Whedon’s negative legacy.
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“While I am proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers, I don’t want to be forever associated with the name Joss Whedon,” Gellar wrote via Instagram in February 2021. “I am more focused on raising my family and surviving a pandemic currently, so I will not be making any further statements at this time. But I stand with all survivors of abuse and am proud of them for speaking out.”
That same month, she told Mario Lopez on the “On With Mario Lopez” podcast that a Buffy reboot didn’t feel like the right fit for her anymore.
“What worked for Buffy was that the monsters represented, they were a metaphor for the horrors of adolescence,” Gellar explained at the time. “I don’t think it’s me, I don’t think I should be the one doing it. … [I’m] way too tired and cranky to put in that work again.”
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Three years later, Gellar exclusively told Us that there was one thing that would make her change her mind.
“I mean, like, if Dolly Parton is going to call me I’m always available to take a phone call from the queen,” she revealed in April 2024, referring to Parton’s involvement in the original series.
While Parton and Gellar are both attached to the reboot, there is no word on whether any other Buffy stars will return.
The series, which ran for seven seasons, also starred Alyson Hannigan, David Boreanaz, Nicholas Brendon, James Marsters, Anthony Head, Emma Caulfield Ford and Michelle Trachtenberg.
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