Buffy Will Be Back To Slay Another Day
More than two decades after it went off the air, one of the most iconic supernatural shows is coming back.
Like it or not, we’re in the heyday of the legacy sequel. It doesn’t matter if it’s only a handful of years after an original work, or even whole decades — if a story can be refreshed and revitalized with a soft reboot, chances are it will be, especially if the supernatural is involved. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice brought its irreverent afterlife comedy to a new generation, while the recent Ghostbusters movies have introduced a crop of kids to defend the world against spectral beings.
Now, the legacy sequel trend is moving to television, with one of the most trailblazing supernatural shows ever made getting a second shot at life — with its original star attached and an all-star creative team.
Buffy and her “Scooby Gang” took down monsters in Sunnyvale, California (aka the Hellmouth) for years.
According to Variety, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer sequel series is nearing a pilot order at Hulu, with Sarah Michelle Gellar attached to return in a recurring role. The original Buffy the Vampire Slayer ran from 1997-2003, and followed high school student Buffy Summers, the fated once-in-a-generation Slayer meant to stand against “the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness.” There aren’t many more details as to what this sequel series will depict, but the series finale of the original show established countless “potential slayers,” meaning the sequel series may not follow a single slayer. (Dark Horse’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics would continue the finale’s storyline with “Season 8” and beyond, though it’s unclear whether the show would adapt these comics.)
Usually, reboot series like this can be seen as cash grabs, but the creative team behind this show is full of heavy-hitters. Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao is currently attached to direct, and sister duo Nora and Lilla Zuckerman are slated to write, showrun, and produce. Gellar herself will serve as a producer as well, along with three returning producers from the original series.
It’s hard to imagine a Buffy series without Buffy herself.
Absent from the reboot is Joss Whedon, the showrunner and writer of the original series as well as its spinoff Angel. Whedon has since faced multiple allegations of workplace abuse and unprofessional behavior from multiple women, including his ex-wife Kai Cole and Buffy and Angel star Charisma Carpenter. However, the Buffy DNA is still present: the Zuckermann sisters previously worked on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., another Whedon show, before co-showrunning Peacock series Poker Face.
This reboot has been a long time coming. In 2018, a reboot was in development at 20th Century Fox from Joss Whedon and Lost writer Monica Owusu-Breen, but it never came to fruition. Gellar was previously against returning to the Buffy role. “I am very proud of the show that we created and it doesn’t need to be done,” she told SFX Magazine in 2023. “We wrapped that up.”
But in December 2024, the rise of legacy sequels seemed to change her mind. “Watching ‘[And Just Like That…]’ and seeing ‘[Dexter: Original Sin],’ and realizing there are ways to do it, definitely does get your mind thinking, ‘Well, maybe,’” she said on the Drew Barrymore Show.
Now, that fleeting thought is coming to fruition. The original Buffy was a reboot of sorts of 1992’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer film, so maybe this reboot will have the same success.
