Sarah Michelle Gellar is readying her wooden stakes for a return to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe.
A new sequel series featuring the 47-year-old actress as Buffy Summers is reportedly close to securing a pilot order from Hulu, Us Weekly confirms. This continuation of the franchise is being described as “the next chapter in the Buffyverse.”
Academy Award-winning director Chloé Zhao is set to helm the project and will also serve as an executive producer under her Book of Shadows production company.
Nora Zuckerman and Lilla Zuckerman have been brought on as writers, showrunners, and executive producers for the series.
Gellar, who originally portrayed the titular vampire slayer from 1997 to 2003, is expected to reprise her role. However, the focus of the reboot will reportedly be on a new slayer, meaning Gellar’s involvement will be in a recurring capacity rather than as the lead. Variety was among the first to report this development.
Gellar will also serve as an executive producer alongside original Buffy executive producers Gail Berman, Fran Kuzui, and Kaz Kuzui through Suite B.
Additionally, Dolly Parton has joined as an executive producer on the pilot, as her Sandollar company was involved in the original series’ production. (Hulu and 20th Television have not provided any official comments on the project.)
Notably absent from the revival is Buffy creator Joss Whedon. Whedon will not be involved due to past misconduct allegations.
In 2021, Charisma Carpenter, who played Cordelia Chase on both Buffy and its spinoff Angel, accused Whedon of fostering a “hostile and toxic work environment.”
“While he found his misconduct amusing, it only served to intensify my performance anxiety, disempower me, and alienate me from my peers,” Carpenter wrote in a lengthy social media post that February.
“The disturbing incidents triggered a chronic physical condition from which I still suffer. It is with a heavy heart that I say I coped in isolation and, at times, destructively.”
Subsequent allegations of misconduct from nearly a dozen individuals connected to the Buffy franchise surfaced. Whedon addressed the accusations in January 2022, acknowledging that he had been “not mannerly” toward Carpenter but insisting that most of their interactions had been “delightful and charming.”
Gellar publicly supported Carpenter in 2021, issuing a statement that distanced herself from Whedon’s tarnished reputation.
“While I am proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers, I don’t want to be forever associated with the name Joss Whedon,” Gellar shared on Instagram in February 2021.
“I am currently more focused on raising my family and surviving a pandemic, so I will not be making any further statements at this time. But I stand with all survivors of abuse and am proud of them for speaking out.”
That same month, during an appearance on the “On With Mario Lopez” podcast, Gellar admitted that she didn’t see herself leading a Buffy reboot.
“What worked for Buffy was that the monsters were metaphors for the horrors of adolescence,” she explained. “I don’t think it’s me; I don’t think I should be the one doing it. … [I’m] way too tired and cranky to put in that work again.”
Three years later, however, Gellar hinted that there was one thing that could change her mind.
“I mean, like, if Dolly Parton is going to call me, I’m always available to take a phone call from the queen,” she joked in April 2024, referring to Parton’s involvement in the original series.
While both Parton and Gellar are confirmed to be part of the reboot, it remains unclear if any other original Buffy cast members will return.
The original series, which ran for seven seasons, starred Alyson Hannigan, David Boreanaz, Nicholas Brendon, James Marsters, Anthony Head, Emma Caulfield Ford, and Michelle Trachtenberg.
