{"id":483170,"date":"2026-03-19T01:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T01:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/483170\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T01:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T01:34:14","slug":"sarah-michelle-gellar-hopes-buffy-reboot-pilot-doesnt-leak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/483170\/","title":{"rendered":"Sarah Michelle Gellar Hopes ‘Buffy’ Reboot Pilot Doesn’t Leak"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSarah Michelle Gellar<\/a> has a message for Buffy the Vampire Slayer<\/a> fans upset about Hulu deciding to cancel the new project. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe actress was on SiriusXM\u2019s Page Six Radio on Wednesday when she was asked about the controversy, which was sparked by the streamer deciding last week not to move forward<\/a> with a sequel to the 1990s cult hit series directed by Oscar winner Chlo\u00e9 <\/a>Zhao.<\/p>\n

\n\tHost Evan Real said he hoped the scrapped pilot, directed by <\/a>Zhao, leaks online. But Gellar had a different point of view.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI actually hope it doesn\u2019t because then everyone\u2019s going to have an opinion on this and that, and pilots are not finished,\u201d said the actress, who\u2019s currently making the media rounds promoting her new horror movie, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, which opens this weekend. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t done, right? It\u2019s not like we did a season and finished it and then they shelved it. It\u2019s not like when they made the Batgirl movie and didn\u2019t [release] it. That movie was finished. You make a pilot \u2014 and I want to clarify this \u2014 we made a pilot [first instead of a full season] on purpose because there\u2019s some new characters and you want to see how it goes. There are things you learn from it, and there are things you fix. Usually, [the first version of a] pilot doesn\u2019t air \u2026 it\u2019s a learning tool. The original Buffy pilot [had] nothing to do with the show. It was a different Willow. It was a very different show. But those are learning tools and that\u2019s what a pilot is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGellar noted that there\u2019s a version of the Buffy reboot pilot script making the rounds online, and she hopes fans avoid reading it, and for the same reason. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve seen a version of the script out there,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s not actually correct. That stuff is really unfortunate and I ask fans if you see scripts \u2014 if you see it leaked \u2014 don\u2019t watch it because you\u2019re not getting our vision and all of that.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tGellar added the reason she\u2019s spoken out about the cancellation is that the Buffy reboot \u201cdeserves respect. And when I don\u2019t see it being given the respect, then I have to stand up for that because that\u2019s important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe actress concluded by telling fans, \u201cThere\u2019s two things you can do if you want to make this right. You can go stream Buffy [and] go see my movie. That\u2019s all we can do right now.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tSources say the filmed reboot pilot (which was written by Nora and Lilla Zuckerman) simply wasn\u2019t very strong. There was a rewrite to address the issues and the first episode draft in particular was improved. But when looking at the prospective season as a whole, the studio ultimately felt the revival effort wasn\u2019t working and ruled against a pilot reshoot and series order. <\/p>\n

\n\tOn Wednesday, a Disney Entertainment Television spokesperson released this statement: \u201cWe have had a long and very successful relationship with Chlo\u00e9, Sarah and Gail \u2014 their track records speak for themselves and they are incredible partners. Our decision not to move forward with a series order is not a reflection of our respect and admiration for the creative team, including Lilla and Nora.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tPreviously, Gellar said the executive<\/a> who scrapped the show (Disney Television Group president Craig Erwich, sources say) made a point of saying he never liked Buffy in the first place.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe 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\u2019t for him,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s very hard when you\u2019re taking a property that is as beloved as\u00a0Buffy, not just to the world, but to me and Chlo\u00e9. 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\u2019t watch it.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tGellar also previously said she spoke to Zhao about the decision. \u201cChlo\u00e9 and I are feeling the same things,\u201d she said. \u201cDisappointment. We don\u2019t want to let the fans down. That hurts. Saddened at how it was handled and when it was handled. But I just said to Chlo\u00e9, and I was very specific, I said, \u2018Sunday night [at the Oscars], you put that crown on and you walk that red carpet and you take in all that love for what you worked for and forget the other stuff.\u2019 It\u2019s important to me that this doesn\u2019t take away from what we achieved and what she\u2019s achieved. And there\u2019s always so [much] more to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sarah Michelle Gellar has a message for Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans upset about Hulu deciding to cancel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[8354,46821,96,59,13770,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-483170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-buffy-the-vampire-slayer","tag-chloe-zhao","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-sarah-michelle-gellar","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}