Recently, the hearts of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans everywhere broke when Sarah Michelle Gellar announced that Hulu passed on its much-anticipated Buffy revival pilot New Sunnydale. This was a legacy series that fans had been excited about for over a year now. Given the IP’s iconic status and how long fans waited to see more Buffy, this news was truly shocking. After finally getting SMG on board to return as the Slayer after so many years, how could Hulu cancel it? Even if the pilot had issues, surely these were things that could be ironed out? Alas, it was not to be. And we think a deadly combination of sexism and ageism is largely to blame here. Why get the “old” Buffy back, when you can just wait for a new one?
Not long after the news of New Sunnydale’s cancellation hit, reasons given by Hulu higher-ups started to surface. A lot of the details came straight from SMG herself. She told press that the Hulu executive in charge never finished the original series, reminding her that the show was “just not for me.” This fact was something he apparently pointed out rather frequently.
And that all might have been true to some extent. But honestly, we think the reasons Buffy was canceled in the pilot stage are just good old-fashioned sexism and ageism. It’s just our opinion, but we think it’s likely that Hulu just wasn’t that interested in investing in a series involving a middle-aged woman hero.. even if she functioned mainly in a mentor capacity to a prominent younger heroine.
In the past, when iconic female action heroines returned to mainstream consciousness after long absences, it was almost always in the form of a reboot. Wonder Woman and Charlie’s Angels came back to great success, but with new under-30 actresses in the roles. We’re not suggesting that’s inherently bad, and Hollywood has done the same with my projects about male heroes. But it would be nice for at least one actress who played a female hero at a young age return to play a more seasoned version of the character. We thought Buffy would be that heroine. Sadly, Hulu executives had other plans.
According to most reports, Hulu is still interested in the Buffy IP, and plans to go back to the drawing board. But we can read between the lines here. The studio asked Sarah Michelle Gellar multiple times over the decades to return as Buffy. And she always said no. If it wasn’t going to be something special, she didn’t feel they should sully the legacy of the original Buffy television series. It was only Chloé Zhao’s version that finally convinced her to come back. If Hulu is ditching Zhao’s vision, chances are SMG is jumping ship. But we suspect that was always the desire of Buffy’s current owners, to exploit the brand name without continuing the version fans love.
The Buffy name and the basics of the premise are known to most. And we think it’s likely that the powers that be want is a young teen Buffy Summers again. It would probably an unknown actress as old as 25 who is somehow playing 16. Think about it. A new actress would give execs less grief about her character direction, unlike an established star like SMG. The chief reason for such a thing is that Hollywood, with rare exceptions, doesn’t believe in utilizing women in roles past a certain age as anything other than concerned mothers or mean bosses. But why can’t a middle-aged woman, mother or not, still be an action hero?
Male cinematic action heroes have permission to age. Harrison Ford got to come back as Han Solo, Indiana Jones, and Deckard from Blade Runner as a senior citizen. Sylvester Stallone returned as Rocky Balboa to train the titular lead in Creed. And that list goes on. Meanwhile, women characters have to avoid middle-age like the plague. We guess it has to do with making sure projects keep staying geared toward the male gaze. Straight cis men still run the studios, and they only want to see younger, “sexier” women in heroic lead roles on screen. These rules clearly don’t apply to male heroic characters, who get to attain crow’s feet and still retain their superheroic status.
Could the Buffy we really want still come back? Anything is possible. Certainly, the backlash to this cancellation has got to have someone over at Disney thinking twice about this. The hashtag #savebuffy is all over social media. And we remember a time a decade ago when Twin Peaks: The Return was no longer happening with David Lynch.
When that news hit, both the show’s cast and fandom screamed bloody murder on the internet, the network offered up the money, and the project went through. We could imagine a similar scenario happening with Buffy: New Sunnydale. But if it truly dies on the vine here, we think the classic patriarchal culprits are to blame.