The singer and entrepreneur’s company Sandollar Television co-produced the original run of Buffy.
It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything on the subject of the proposed reboot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
The teen cult hit, which span out of the 1992 movie, starred Sarah Michelle Gellar as a schoolgirl who discovers she’s the chosen. With a strong ensemble cast, the show ran for seven seasons (1997 – 2003) under the direction of its creator Joss Whedon (Firefly), dealing with a heady mix of teenage issues and undead demons.
It also spawned the sister show Angel, which followed Buffy’s brooding undead former boyfriend (David Boreanaz) to Los Angeles – that ran for five years (1999 – 2004) too.
A Buffy Reboot
Back in 2018, rumours surfaced of a potential reboot with Whedon executive producing and Monica Owusu-Breen (Fringe, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D) serving as writer and showrunner. Reports indicated that the new version would provide a more diverse take on the story and deal with real modern-day issues, which caused some predictable backlash.
However, nothing appeared to come to fruition and later comments from producer Gail Berman in 2022 revealed the project was “on pause”. This came in the wake of allegations of Joss Whedon abusive on set behaviour made by cast members, including Charisma Carpenter.
Dolly Parton
Now, Dolly Parton (yes, there’s only one Dolly) has revealed those reboot plans are still afoot. If you didn’t know the link, Parton’s company Sandollar has a television production arm and was responsible for co-producing the original Buffy movie, as well as both the Buffy and Angel television shows. However, Parton herself apparently took a back seat on the show.
Talking to Business Insider, she responded to a question about the proposed reboot saying:
“They’re still working on that. They’re thinking about bringing it back and revamping it.”
Sadly, Ms Parton was not forthcoming on quite who ‘they’ might be!
For more on that remarkable Dolly/Buffy connection, Sarah Michelle Gellar gave a great interview to US talk show host Jimmy Kimmel back in April 2023:
We’ll keep you posted on the Buffy reboot.
In the meantime, you can catch all of Buffy and Angel on various streaming planforms including Disney+. Plus, there’s the recent audio drama Slayers: A Buffyverse Story, led by James Masters as Spike and now available on Audible.