{"id":208069,"date":"2026-03-17T09:45:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T09:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/208069\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T09:45:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T09:45:07","slug":"sarah-michelle-geller-speaks-out-about-hulus-buffy-cancellation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/208069\/","title":{"rendered":"Sarah Michelle Geller Speaks Out About Hulu’s ‘Buffy’ Cancellation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAfter revealing<\/a> that Hulu<\/a> would not be moving forward with the planned reboot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer<\/a>, star Sarah Michelle Geller has spoken out about the way in which it was cancelled. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe actress got the call on Friday as she was preparing to appear at SXSW to promote her new film, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was just about to take the stage in front of all the fans: Hulu had decided not to move forward with the Buffy revival,\u201d she told People<\/a> in a new interview. \u201cLet me tell you, nobody saw this coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe revival was\u00a0announced in February 2025<\/a>\u00a0with Oscar-winning filmmaker Chlo\u00e9 Zhao at the helm. While Gellar was initially reluctant to portray the vampire slayer again, she eventually agreed to return to the role after teaming up with writing duo Lilla\u00a0and\u00a0Nora Zuckerman.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve been asked since the day I left to return to Sunnydale,\u201d Geller told People. \u201cAnd it never occurred to me that it was something I was going to do. Then four years ago, Chlo\u00e9, the witch that she is \u2014 and I say that as a good thing \u2014 comes into my life. In one meeting, she makes me say \u2018yes\u2019 to something I never saw on my radar. That was because of the deep love and commitment and passion she had for this character. It was like I was stepping back in time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tZhao filmed a pilot episode for the reboot, which planned to introduce Ryan Kiera Armstrong as a new slayer alongside Geller\u2019s Buffy. \u201cChlo\u00e9 and I talked a lot,\u201d Geller said. \u201cThe dialogue flew off the tongue. When I was on set, it was craziness. It was like, \u2018Oh, we\u2019re here. We\u2019re doing this.\u2019 I loved the duality that we had this new, younger slayer who was where Buffy was when the show started, and then we would pick up with where Buffy was now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGeller noted that not only was the timing of her call inappropriate, but it felt unfortunate that the decision came ahead of Sunday\u2019s Oscars, where Zhao\u2019s film Hamnet was up for numerous awards, including Best Director. <\/p>\n

\n\tFor them to call us on the Friday of what should have been Chlo\u00e9\u2019s victory lap for an incredible film, and my world premiere of something that I worked very hard for is\u2014that says something,\u201d Geller noted. <\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tShe explained the cancellation came from one specific executive. \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 Geller 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

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tGeller added that both she and Zhao are feeling \u201cdisappointment.\u201d \u201cWe don\u2019t want to let the fans down,\u201d she said. \u201cThat 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, 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 more to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe actress took to social media on Saturday to share the news directly with fans. \u201cSo I am really sad to have to share this, but I wanted you all to hear it from me. Unfortunately, Hulu has decided not to move forward with\u00a0Buffy: New Sunnydale,\u201d Gellar told fans in a video posted on Instagram.\u00a0She added, \u201cIf the apocalypse comes, you can still beep me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After revealing that Hulu would not be moving forward with the planned reboot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,81640,81641,7166,81642,81200],"class_list":["post-208069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-buffy-the-vampire-slayer","tag-chloe-zhao","tag-disney","tag-hulu","tag-sarah-michelle-gellar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}