Buffy – without Joss???

by Nalini Haynes

Breaking news – Warner Bros is making a Buffy movie reboot, without Joss Whedon. Joss says, ‘This is a sad, sad reflection on our times, when people must feed off the carcasses of beloved stories from their youths—just because they can’t think of an original idea of their own, like I did with my Avengers idea that I made up myself… I always hoped that Buffy would live on even after my death. But, you know, AFTER… Leave me to my pain!’

Jen Cummings of Melbourne Browncoats says the goss from Whedonesque is that this reboot does not have the rights to anything on the TV series, so there won’t be any Sunnydale, Giles, Willow, Zander… Those who have watched the original movie will recall that Joss’ script was interpreted as a 50s horror spoof. How will this be rebooted? Why bother trying?

On the upside, SFX did a Joss Whedon October 2010 special edition, in a slip cover with 2 magazines. One magazine is devoted to reviewing and counting down favourite episodes of Joss created TV series. The other is a ‘Worlds of Whedon’ mag, including a huge interview with Joss, interviews with a number of stars and writers who have worked with Joss in his series and more. My only criticism? Two of my favourite characters seem to be almost missing from this special, presumably because the actors are deceased. The characters are Doyle (Angel, season 1, first half) and Lorne (AKA The Host, Angel).

Sources:

Kristin Dos Santos from Au
Terri Schwartz

This article was previously published in Dark Matter issue 2, January 2011, and predated on this website to reflect the original publication date.  Since then, this reboot has fallen into development hell