Sarah Michelle Gellar says there was a Hulu executive who never seemed on board with the “Buffy” reboot and now it’s dead in the water….
Sarah Michelle Gellar broke a whole lot of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” fans’ hearts when she revealed that the upcoming reboot titled “Buffy: New Sunnydale” was already cancelled at Hulu and wouldn’t be moving forward any longer.
The highly anticipated sequel to the original seven season run of the show was developed by Oscar winning director Chloe Zhao and it was her vision for the series that actually got Gellar on board after she said for years she put down her stakes for good playing Buffy Summers. Gellar was understandably disappointed by the news but it turns out, an executive at Hulu may have been working against the “Buffy” reboot from the start.
“No one saw this coming.” Gellar told People about the “Buffy” cancellation. “We had an executive on our show who was not only not a fan of the original, but was proud to constantly remind us that he had never seen the entirety of the series and how it wasn’t for him.”
That seems like a really bad idea for Hulu to assign somebody to work on the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” reboot who obviously had no interest in actually bringing the beloved series back to life again.
“That’s very hard when you’re taking a property that is as beloved as Buffy, not just to the world, but to me and Chloé,” Gellar said. “So that tells you the uphill battle that we had been fighting since day one, when your executive is literally proud to tell you that he didn’t watch it.”
The news hit Gellar particularly hard due to the timing because she’s been hard at work promoting her new film “Ready or Not 2: Here I Come,” which opens in theaters on Friday while Zhao was just days away from her second Oscar nomination for Best Director for her latest film “Hamnet.”
“I got the call as we were stepping onto stage for the premiere of their own movie,” Gellar said. “And it’s also the weekend of Chloé going to the Oscars as a best director nominee for ‘Hamnet.’ For them to call us on the Friday of what should have been Chloé’s victory lap for an incredible film, and my world premiere of something that I worked very hard for is… that says something.”
Of course “Buffy” fans didn’t take this news lying down.
Numerous petitions have been started online asking for Hulu to revive the project and many others are demanding to know the executive that may have personally had a hand in killing the series.
For now, “Buffy” fans will just have to wait and see what happens for the future because right now “Buffy: New Sunnydale” is dead and buried.
