By now, we all know that Buffy: New Sunnydale has been cancelled by Hulu.
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When the news initially broke, the word was the show's pilot had failed to impress the network. However, more details have now surfaced.
"I hear virtually every day last week, the two studios on the Buffy reboot, 20th Television and Searchlight Television, touched base with the project's producers and creative team, indicating that a pickup for the pilot starring Gellar and Ryan Kiera Armstrong seemed imminent," Deadline's Nellie Andreeva wrote.
Sounds promising, right?
Well, that was until Disney Television Group President Craig Erwich decided not to move forward with the project.
"I was just about to take the stage in front of all the fans," Sarah Michelle Gellar told People. "Hulu had decided not to move forward with the Buffy revival. Let me tell you, nobody saw this coming."
'Buffy: A New Sunnydale' Was Fighting an Uphill Battle
According to Sarah, the show was fighting an uphill battle from the outset. One of the executives working on the show had made it clear they'd never been a fan of the original. That, of course, begs the question as to why they were involved in the project to begin with.
"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," Sarah continued. "...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."
Despite the setback, there's still a chance that we see a new Buffy at some point in the future. What that will look like remains to be seen. Yet, given all of the dissapointment at how things have turned out, Disney will likely explore other ways to maximize an IP that has so much potential but remains dormant.
"Buffy is timeless," Sarah said. "And the one thing I do want all these fans to know is that legacy is still there and this doesn't diminish it. It doesn't change it. That legacy is still there — for them."
