Sarah Michelle Gellar Slams Studio Exec After ‘Buffy’ Reboot Cancellation
Nearly 30 years after the premiere of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sarah Michelle Gellar planned to step back into the iconic role. Gellar teamed up with Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao to make the new series for Hulu. Recently, however, they received news that Hulu was not moving forward with it. Gellar indicated that one specific studio executive was to blame.
Sarah Michelle Gellar planned to star in the reboot of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’
In 2025, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot was announced at Hulu. While the show would feature a new slayer, Gellar would return to her role as Buffy Summers. She said she’d been waiting for this moment for a long time.
“I’ve been asked since the day I left to return to Sunnydale,” Gellar told People. “And it never occurred to me that it was something I was going to do. Then four years ago, Chloé, the witch that she is — and I say that as a good thing — comes into my life. In one meeting, she makes me say ‘yes’ to something I never saw on my radar. That was because of the deep love and commitment and passion she had for this character. It was like I was stepping back in time.”
They filmed a pilot episode, and Gellar felt confident in their finished product.
“Chloé and I talked a lot,” she said. “The dialogue flew off the tongue. When I was on set, it was craziness. It was like, ‘Oh, we’re here. We’re doing this.’ I loved the duality that we had this new, younger slayer who was where Buffy was when the show started, and then we would pick up with where Buffy was now.”
Sarah Michelle Gellar blamed one executive for the cancellation of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’
One year later, Gellar announced that Hulu was no longer moving forward with the series. She said the decision stunned her.
“I was just about to take the stage in front of all the fans,” Gellar said. “Hulu had decided not to move forward with the Buffy revival. Let me tell you, nobody saw this coming.”
Gellar said that the timing of this announcement — ahead of the premiere for Gellar’s new film Ready or Not 2 and the Oscars, where Zhao’s Hamnet had nominations for Best Picture and Best Director — stung.
“I got the call as we were stepping onto stage for the premiere of their own movie,” she said. “And it’s also the weekend of Chloé going to the Oscars as a best director nominee for Hamnet. For them to call us on the Friday of what should have been Chloé’s victory lap for an incredible film, and my world premiere of something that I worked very hard for is…. That says something.”
Gellar believes one executive was to blame. He was openly dismissive of the original series.
“We had an executive on our show who was not only not a fan of the original, but was proud to constantly remind us that he had never seen the entirety of the series and how it wasn’t for him,” she said. “That’s very hard when you’re taking a property that is as beloved as Buffy, not just to the world, but to me and Chloé. So that tells you the uphill battle that we had been fighting since day one, when your executive is literally proud to tell you that he didn’t watch it.”
At this point, Gellar said that the future of the series is uncertain, as Disney still owns the IP.
Her latest project is ‘Ready or Not 2: Here I Come’
Gellar is currently starring in Ready or Not 2: Here I Come. She was a fan of the first film and looked forward to joining the series.
“So much of Hollywood right now I feel like is, you know, let’s try to be the next this or be the next this as opposed to trying to be the new something that everyone else wants to copy and Ready Or Not was its own genre,” she told Marie Claire. “It was horror, but it was action. But it was comedy, but it was the story of family — and had these sort of deeper meanings.”
She said that at this stage in her career, she is very deliberate with the projects she chooses. Ready or Not 2 felt like a good fit for her.
“You pick jobs for different reasons and I never wanna be the girl that’s there just to be there,” she said. “I always want her to have a purpose and be three-dimensional and to be flawed and not perfect and to be real.”
Ready or Not 2 hits theaters on March 20.
