Some time ago it was announced that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was going to be rebooted as a movie – but without Joss Whedon.
This didn’t sound like a good idea from the get-go, and fortunately, it now seems the ill-advised reboot isn’t going forward after all.
Last year, Whedon reacted to the planned reboot by telling E!, “This is a sad, sad reflection of our times, when people must feed off the carcasses of beloved stories from their youths – just because they can’t think of an original idea of their own, like I did with my Avengers idea that I made up myself…”
He obviously had “strong, mixed emotions… I always hoped that Buffy would live on after my death. But, you know, AFTER. I don’t love the idea of my creation in other hands, but I’m also well aware that many more hands than mine went into making that show what it was. And there is no legal grounds for doing anything other than sighing audibly.”
Fans weren’t happy about this, and of course the ‘Net went wild with the news, but The Hollywood Reporter also mentioned that Whedon was offered the chance to come aboard for a Buffy movie, and passed to make The Avengers instead. This Buffy was handed over to Whit Anderson, an unknown actress who only had only done small roles, but her pitch was at first strong enough to get set up at Warner.
Now apparently that script has been rejected, according to the L.A. Times and MTV. Of course, this doesn’t mean the project’s dead, there’s a new writer being sought out, but Buffy fans are clearly happy by this turn of events.
As Sarah Michelle Gellar said of the planned reboot, “I think it’s a horrible idea. To try to do a Buffy without Joss Whedon…to be incredibly non-eloquent: that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.”
Marti Noxon, who wrote for the show and also scripted the recent remake of Fright Night also told MTV that fans are “excruciatingly loyal, unless they hate you, in which case they’re excruciating about that too.”
We all know the geeks are always tough to please, and a Buffy reboot especially would have to move heaven and earth to win them over.
