There have been rumours for a while about a potential new movie based on Joss Whedon's Buffy The Vampire slayer concept, but nothing has come of them. Now, though, Whedon is involved in a new effort to reboot the idea as a TV series again, with an African-American Slayer and Midnight, Texas developer Monica Owusu-Breen as showrunner.
"Like our world, it will be richly diverse, and like the original, some aspects of the series could be seen as metaphors for issues facing us all today," said the various producers in a statement. It's still cooking away in the development boiler (the pilot script isn't written yet), and the show idea now has to be pitched to cable networks and streaming services. So there are no other details to report yet, other than it'll be set today, and build on the Buffy mythology Whedon created first for the 1992 film and then adapted into the successful TV series starring Sarah Michelle Gellar as the young woman who discovers she has a destiny to save the world. A lot.
Whedon's series ran for seven seasons, spawned spin-off show Angel and is still influential today. As for Owusu-Breen, she already worked with him on Agents Of SHIELD and is collaborating with the creator on the show show. Whether Whedon will have any other role other than producer and consultant remains to be seen, especially since he's busy putting the pieces together for his own new show, HBO series The Nevers.
Buffy is not a show we ever thought would benefit from a reboot, but if this potential series can take it in a new direction and find fresh things to say, it could be worth watching.
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