The reaction to the fact that Joss Whedon is developing a new ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ has met with mixed reaction, to put it mildly. Monica Owusu-Breen is collaborating with Whedon in the reboot, which will feature an African American Slayer in the lead, and will serve as showrunner of the new series, should it make it that far. Perhaps it may help that Owusu-Breen is a huge fan of the original series and assures that she isn’t trying to replace or replicate it. “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,” she stressed in July.
For their parts, Alyson Hannigan, who played Buffy’s best friend Willow, felt that reruns of the original show would work just as well, but expressed optimism that the new series could be as good as the first, while James Marsters volunteered to reprise his role as Spike on the new show.
Obviously, Joss Whedon is a driving force behind the new series, but what about his collaborators? Marti Noxon who served as a writer and executive producer on the original series and as showrunner of Season Six shared the attitude of many at first.
“I’ll be honest, initially I was like, ‘Nooo! Don’t touch the sacred text!’”
However, upon learning more about plans for the new series, she said:
“But the more I learned about it, the more excited I got. I’m excited that there is a female showrunner and that she’s a woman of color writing about a woman of color. So I’m actually really pumped for it.”
Noxon isn’t participating in the new series. But would she? “I think they’ve got it covered (laughs).”
20th Century Fox is the studio behind the new ‘Buffy’ but the pilot is being developed independently and was not ordered by a particular network. So presumably, once things fall into place, Whedon and Owusu-Breen will shop the idea around to networks and streaming services to hopefully get a pilot order, which will allow them to move forward.
What are your thoughts on the new ‘Buffy’?
Source: The Wrap
