Fans have been desperate for any news on the upcoming Buffy the Vampire Slayer revival coming to Hulu. Well, we now know it has an official title. The news came from the Slayer herself, as Sarah Michelle Gellar revealed on the Shut Up, Evan podcast (via Deadline) that the series’ name is Buffy the Vampire Slayer: New Sunnydale. This pretty much confirms rumors that Buffy’s former hometown of Sunnydale, California, which lies atop the Hellmouth, is getting rebuilt. This is 25 years after the ground swallowed it up in the original Buffy series finale, “Chosen.”
During her interview, Sarah Michelle Gellar reiterated, “It’s not a sequel, it’s not a reboot — it’s a continuation.” She said the series will answer “Where Buffy is now in this world, and what is this world that Buffy lives in, with her and without her. So it’s not a reboot, it’s not picking up with all of the same characters right away. It is not like a sequel… That’s why the name was even important to me — Buffy: New Sunnydale. It’s Buffy, but it’s also something else.” If anything, this very much sounds like a legacy sequel. We’ve got a new generation of characters, like Ryan Kiera Armstrong, guided by older characters as mentor figures.
The original Buffy may have never achieved the ratings of its ’90s television brethren like The X-Files. But it stands today as one of the most influential TV series of all time. So SMG understands the burden of bringing it back in any form. It was ultimately Oscar-winning director Chloë Zhao, who directed the pilot, who convinced Gellar to return. “I know this seems like it’s taking a long time, and it’s because unless we are sure that it is exactly what we set out to do and that it makes sense to do it. We don’t want to sully the legacy,” Gellar said. “When I know it’s perfect, then it will be out there. But I won’t do it unless I know it can be that.” Hopefully, by this year, Hulu will reveal what its exact plans are for New Sunnydale.