It looks like a new Chosen One won’t be patrolling the streets for vampires and ghouls anytime soon.
Back in 2018, it was revealed that a reboot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a Black lead was in development – with original series creator Joss Whedon and Fringe alum Monica Owusu-Breen attached as executive producer and showrunner, respectively.
At the time, the announcement was slammed by fans and critics – which resulted in Owusu-Breen confirming that it would be a revival instead of a full-blown reboot.
“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. One Xander, one Willow, Giles, Cordelia, Oz, Tara, Kendra, Faith, Spike, Angel…
“They can’t be replaced. Joss Whedon’s brilliant and beautiful series can’t be replicated. I wouldn’t try to. But here we are, twenty 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.”
However four years after the reboot announcement, the prospects of viewers returning to Sunnydale or any other Hellmouth now look pretty slim.
According to The Hollywood Reporter’s TV Top 5 podcast, producer Gail Berman revealed that the show was “on pause.”
She then clarified her comment further by stating that the term on pause was “industry speak for purgatory, make of that what you will.”
Berman, who worked on the original Buffy series and its spin-off Angel, was attached to the revival as one of its producers.
The recent Buffy news comes a few weeks after Sarah Michelle Gellar shared her pick on who the next slayer should be.
In an interview with Evan Ross Katz for his introspective new book,
lesbian
Joss Whedon
Sarah Michelle Gellar