Buffy Not To Be Re-Vamped After All As Hulu Passes On Pilot

This is quite surprising, but Hulu just spent about a year’s worth of time hyping the development of a continuation of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, putting together a pilot and and getting considerable press coverage over it, only to ultimately change their minds. As of last weekend “Buffy: New Sunnydale” is no more.

There was certainly demand for it…it’s unusual for a streamer like Hulu to ignore demand. The show would have followed a new Slayer for a new generation, played by Ryan Kiera Armstrong (Star Wars: Skeleton Crew). But the show was still called “Buffy” and so Buffy had to be somewhere, right? Sarah Michelle Gellar filmed a scene for the pilot, though she has not revealed what it was for and what Buffy’s role truly was.

Chloé Zhao directed “Buffy: New Sunnydale” and also served as executive producer. Curiously, when Zhao was asked for her take on the news at the Red Carpet last night, she told reporters she was “not surprised.” Zhao was at the Oscars for her involvement with the movie Hamnet, not Buffy, which is also why she was dressed in a medieval funeral outfit complete with black face curtain. It made her blunt statement all the more striking. But she softened it with “I had an incredible, incredible time with Sarah, with the whole cast and crew doing this, and we, first and foremost, see ourselves as the guardians of the original show,” Zhao said. “Our priority has always been to be truthful to the show and be truthful to our fans. So things happen for a reason, and we keep our hearts open, and we welcome the mystery for what this may lead us to.”

This just leaves us to wonder…was the pilot bad? Or was it “bad” in the executive sense, as in “this isn’t marketable in the way that we want”? If the pilot is never leaked, then we’ll never know for sure. But reports suggest a conflict between Zhao and Hulu over the direction of the pilot and mysterious, unspecified creative choices. It means Zhao sensed the project was doomed well before we knew it was.

Whether Hulu plans to pursue a different creative team, or just shelve the Buffy property for now, no one knows.