Buffy reboot will follow new slayer, showrunner confirms

It was officially announced last week that the hit WB series Buffy the Vampire Slayer is getting the reboot treatment at Fox with a black actress leading the series! Fan reaction as mixed at first as it was initially seen as though Sarah Michelle Gellar’s portrayal would be replaced. However, new showrunner Monica Owusu-Breen (Alias) has just confirmed that the new series will not be replacing Gellar in the titular role, but rather will focus on a new slayer.

“For some genre writers it’s Star Wars. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my Star Wars,” Owusu-Breen wrote in a tweet. “Before I became a writer, I was a fan. For seven seasons, I watched Buffy Summers grow up, find love, kill that love. I watched her fight and struggle and slay. There is only ONE Buffy. One Xander, one Willow, Giles, Cordelia, Oz, Tara, Kendra, Faith, Spike, Angel…They can’t be replaced. Joss Whedon’s brilliant and beautiful series can’t be replicated. I wouldn’t try to. But here we are, twenty years later…And the world seems a lot scarier. So maybe, it could be time to meet a new Slayer…And that’s all I can say.”

Owusu-Breen’s previous credits in the TV world include the J.J. Abrams espionage thriller Alias, mystery-drama Lost and sci-fi drama Fringe, as well as the ABC drama Brothers & Sisters and Marvel series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The reboot’s network is currently unknown, given that the original series ran on The WB and UPN, both of which are now defunct, and that the rights to the franchise are owned by 20th Century Fox.

A follow-up to the Whedon-penned Buffy the Vampire Slayer feature film, the Buffy TV series ran from 1997 to 2003 for seven seasons. The series starred Sarah Michelle Gellar in the title role alongside Alyson Hannigan, Nicholas Brendon, Charisma Carpenter, Anthony Stewart Head, David Boreanaz, Seth Green, James Marsters, Emma Caulfield, Michelle Trachtenberg, Amber Benson, and Kristine Sutherland. Since its conclusion, the series has continued in comic book form, with some of the characters continuing their journey in the Angel spin-off series. There was previously a feature film reboot of the property in development at Warner Bros., but it failed to materialize.