For a hot minute, it looked like Buffy was back. Sarah Michelle Gellar was set to reprise the role, fans were buzzing, and then Hulu slammed the brakes. Why? Depends who you ask. One reason floating around: the reboot pilot barely had Buffy in it.
So… how much Buffy was in the Buffy reboot?
In the pilot draft for the new take — titled 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer: New Sunnydale' from writers Nora and Lilla Zuckerman — the story mostly follows a new hero named Nova, played by Ryan Kiera Armstrong, in classic monster-riddled Sunnydale. The final pages jump to New York City, where a 'woman in a pantsuit' strolls into a bland insurance office and sits at a cubicle. Her nameplate: Anne Summers. A coworker nudges her not to be late for a meeting. Buffy (yes, clearly Buffy) answers: 'Nope... wouldn't want that.' As she heads off, her work computer suddenly floods with insurance claims from Sunnydale, California. Smash to black. That’s it for Buffy in the pilot.
A later pass reportedly beefed up Buffy’s presence, but by that point Hulu execs decided the project wasn’t worth saving. Maybe that’s harsh. Maybe it’s the right call. But if you’re going to put her name in the title, saving the Slayer reveal for the last page is a spicy choice.
What actually happened, step by step
- Hulu developed 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer: New Sunnydale' with Sarah Michelle Gellar returning as Buffy.
- The pilot draft centered on a new lead, Nova (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), in Sunnydale.
- Buffy shows up only at the end as 'Anne Summers' in a New York insurance office, delivers one line, and sees a flood of Sunnydale claims on her computer.
- A subsequent rewrite featured more Buffy.
- Hulu ultimately passed and chose not to move forward with the series.
Gellar does not want a leak
As fans cross their fingers for a leak, Gellar’s waving a big red flag. She’s not into the idea of half-baked work getting judged like a finished season, and she’s pretty blunt about it:
'I actually hope it doesn't because then everyone's going to have an opinion on this and that, and pilots are not finished.'
She also pointed out that they intentionally shot a pilot first to test new characters and dynamics, the way you’re supposed to. And if you need a reminder that pilots are experiments, she brought up the original Buffy pilot — the one with a different Willow — which barely resembles what the show became.
'It's not like when they made the Batgirl movie and didn't release it. That movie was finished.'
On top of that, Gellar says a script that’s been circulating is not the real deal and asked fans to skip it rather than judge a version that doesn't reflect what the team was aiming for.
Bottom line: We almost got a new Buffy, the pilot tried to hand the baton to a new Slayer, Hulu wasn’t sold, and the star would rather the rough draft stay in the vault. Hard to argue with wanting people to see the finished cut, not the assembly.