The Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot is currently being placed “on pause” indefinitely.
Executive producer, Gail Berman, announced the update on the Hollywood Reporter’s TV’s Top 5 podcast. Unfortunately, the show also does not have an official network it can call home yet, which might be one of the reasons why it isn’t seeing the light of day anytime soon (via Deadline).
The reboot, which has been developing since 2018, was billed as a “richly diverse” show with a black actress as the lead heroine.
When 20th Century Fox announced the series, they described the show as being ‘like the original’. They added: “Some aspects of the series could be seen as metaphors for issues facing us all today.”
The creator of the series, Joss Whedon, was on board this reboot as an executive producer, with Monica Owusu-Breen (Midnight, Texas) serving as writer and showrunner.
Owusu-Breen said of the show in 2018: “For some genre writers, it’s Star Wars. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my Star Wars. Before I became a writer, I was a fan. For seven seasons, I watched Buffy Summers grow up, find love, kill that love. I watched her fight and struggle and slay.
“There is only one Buffy…They can’t be replaced. I wouldn’t try to. But here we are, 20 years later… and the world seems a lot scarier. So maybe, it could be time to meet a new Slayer… And that’s all I can say.”
But since then, Whedon has had allegations of behavioural misconduct on the set of Justice League by actors Ray Fisher and Gal Gadot.
Then, in early 2021, Buffy star Charisma Carpenter also spoke out against his behaviour. Soon Sarah Michelle Geller, the original Buffy, distanced herself from Whedon and was backed up by Michelle Trachtenberg, who played Buffy’s sister, Dawn.
So, it doesn’t look like this reboot will be going ahead anytime soon. But there is always the original to keep your heart content for now.
Source: digitalspy.com