You might have heard the gigantic fansplosion when it was announced last week thatthe plans to reboot Buffy the Vampire Slayer had crawled from their limbo grave, snagged hold of a concept from actress/writer Whit Anderson and were headed for the screen via Warner Bros. We threw in our take, but among all the hand wringing and what-about-Whedon-itude, one seemingly important fact was unknown at the time: Joss had had the chance to take the reigns of the reboot himself. And passed.
According to The Hollywood Reporter – which is quoting “studio insiders” – Whedon was approached last year after Fran Rubel Kuzui and Kaz Kuzui began developing the film remake. And though he was handed the opportunity to return his most famous creation to the big screen, he decided instead to opt for work on Marvel’s Avengers adventure.
Enter Anderson, who cooked up a take on the mythology that the producers liked and soon Charles Roven’s Atlas Entertainment and its Warners partners were also jumping aboard.
We’re slightly confused as to why Whedon didn’t mention the fact that he got a new shot at Buffy and co when he released his statement about the pain of seeing it in other hands. But then, there’s always the chance that he was under an agreement not to tattle about the offer, or that he simply decided that to reheat his creation was a step backwards, with Iron Man, Captain America and the rest as his future.
The “insiders” bit makes us think this could still be debunked down the line, but for now it seems like the main reason we’re not seeing a new Joss-driven Buffy story is because Joss himself decided against it.
**Update: **Plot? Consider yourself thickened. The memory-minded researchers over at Whedonesque dug up this tiny mention Whedon made of the offer back in an Entertainment Weekly interview last year...