Sarah Michelle Gellar is detailing how Academy Award winner Chloé Zhao modified her thoughts a couple of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” reboot.
Gellar, who has publicly been in opposition to a revival for years, formally is about to reprise her titular position as Buffy Summers for a brand new Hulu sequence, with Zhao directing the pilot. “Poker Face” scribes Nora and Lilla Zuckerman are writing the present, which hails from twentieth Tv and Searchlight TV the place Zhao has a first-look deal. Each Gellar and Zhao will govt produce the sequence, together with authentic govt producer (and music icon) Dolly Parton. “Buffy” creator and author Joss Whedon has no involvement within the reboot.
“Each pitch I heard was similar to, ‘Let’s simply do “Buffy” once more,’” Gellar instructed Elite Day by day of why she lastly determined to conform to a revival. “Why? However the ardour that [Zhao] got here to me with, what she wished to do with the present and the character, and why ‘Buffy’ is required now — it was the primary time the place I assumed, ‘OK, there’s a motive.’”
“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” aired on the WB for 5 seasons from 1997 to 2001 earlier than shifting to UPN for 2 extra seasons. The sequence additionally landed spinoff “Angel” from 1999 to 2004.
Gellar mentioned that the revival has been within the works for 4 years. “We gained’t do it until it’s one hundred pc proper and there’s one hundred pc a motive,” she added. “The entire level of an antihero is to be a hero for the individuals who don’t match within the field, the individuals who aren’t like everyone else. That’s who I wish to inform tales for.”
And whereas not a lot else is understood concerning the revival, Gellar confirmed that any loglines or casting rumors are false. “These are all faux characters,” she mentioned. “That factor that acquired launched is all faux.”
Gellar teased throughout “The Drew Barrymore Present” in 2024 that she was impressed by different early 2000s revival sequence to revisit “Buffy.” “It’s humorous, I at all times used to say no, as a result of it’s in its bubble and it’s so excellent,” she mentioned. “However watching ‘Intercourse and the Metropolis’ and seeing ‘Dexter,’ and realizing there are methods to do it, positively does get your thoughts pondering, ‘Properly, perhaps.’ […] And it makes you notice that on this world, we want these heroes, I believe, extra so than ever.”
Within the meantime earlier than “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” 2.0, Zhao was directing “Hamnet” based mostly on Maggie O’Farrell novel about William Shakespeare and his spouse Agnes. Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley star.