Just…no:
‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ reboot is in the works https://t.co/HeB6UTHuFs pic.twitter.com/KFQGhYznB7
— Page Six (@PageSix) July 21, 2018
A TV reboot of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is in development at 20th Century Fox Television, Variety has confirmed.
Original series creator Joss Whedon is onboard to executive produce, with writer Monica Owusu-Breen attached to write the script. The rebooted series will see a black actress take over the title role, which was played in the series by Sarah Michelle Gellar.
Gail Berman, Joe Earley, Fran Kazui and Kaz Kazui will also executive produce. No network is attached to the series, but it will no doubt stir up a bidding war among various networks and streaming services when it is taken to market.
The obvious first question that comes to mind here is “Does Joss Whedon really need the money that badly?”
The answer to that would seem to be “No”:
The rebooted series also marks the latest television project Whedon has lined up in the past few months. Just last week HBO announced they had given a straight-to-series order to “The Nevers,” a sci-fi drama that Whedon will write, direct, and executive produce in addition to serving as showrunner. He is also an executive producer on “Pippa Smith: Grown-Up Detective,” a half-hour comedy series in development at Freeform.
The recent success of the “Roseanne” reboot is no doubt fueling some of the desire to revisit previous hit shows. That, however, featured the original cast. “Buffy” wasn’t just an iconic hit show from the ’90s though, it also had a rabid, almost cult-like fan base, including yours truly.
There is also the fact that what made “Buffy” such a phenomenon wasn’t just magnificent writing, but what the actors and their characters did with it. The new show might be able to duplicate the wittiness and drama of it all, but will hardcore fans care?
Reboot fever is raging right now, mostly with the old-guard broadcast networks, which have long lacked originality. The television brains of the 1990s may have produced “Buffy” and “Friends” but they also spat out seemingly a thousand “Friends” ripoffs, all of which lasted about two episodes.
The most original television programming in the last twenty years has come from the premium channels and newer cable networks like FX. The major networks are mostly still doing cop and lawyer shows that are watched by everyone’s grandparents.
It’s also a crap shoot as to how well any new Joss Whedon show will be received after he has spent the last two years losing his mind and publicly berating half of the country.
I will admit that I have enjoyed the reboot of “Hawaii Five-O,” which I began watching one night merely because I had been searching Netflix for about half an hour and just gave up. Then again, it didn’t give me much of a reboot feeling, as I had seen maybe two episodes of the original.
Maybe a new generation can enjoy the “Buffy” reboot.
Or they could just binge-watch the classic.
