14 DAY TRIAL // Hours ago, Warner Bros. has announced a reboot of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is underway, with Whit Anderson to pen the script and zero involvement from Joss Whedon, the creator of the characters. Though he knows the matter is out of his hands, Whedon is “sad” about the announcement.
As we were also telling you in May last year, the question of making the beloved television series into a feature film has been on the table for years – and Whedon wasn’t necessarily considered a must in order to get it done.
On the contrary, reports said at the time a reboot would be made without Wheon if push came to shove, because the rights to the story and the character belonged to Fran Rubel and Kaz Kuzui, who penned the script for the original 1992 film from which the TV series spawned.
As it turns out, that time has come and Warners is moving on with plans for the reboot without as much as a little consideration to how Whedon may feel about it.
In an e-mail to E! Online on the topic of the recent “Buffy” announcement, Whedon says he understands the need to capitalize on a once-successful franchise but laments the fact as a “sad, sad reflection of our times.”
At the same time, he underlines that he knows he has no legal rights to speak evil of the reboot – yet he can’t but do so because it’s unnecessary and will undoubtedly ruin the original story for fans.
“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,” Whedon says.
With an announcement like this one, he can’t but have “strong, mixed emotions,” he says. He then adds with bitterness that he’s “seldom informed” of anything, even at those times when he should be – and jokes about how he didn’t know that vampires were popular anymore.
“I always hoped that Buffy would live on even after my death. But, you know, AFTER. I don’t love the idea of my creation in other hands, but I’m also well aware that many more hands than mine went into making that show what it was,” Whedon says on a more serious note.
“And there is no legal grounds for doing anything other than sighing audibly. I can’t wish people who are passionate about my little myth ill,” he adds.
Since he’s on the topic of reboots, he also uses the opportunity to announce that he’ll be doing his own Batman reboot, one he’ll call, “The Dark Knight Rises Way Earlier Than That Other One And Also More Cheaply And In Toronto, rebooting into a theater near you.”
Back to the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” reboot, casting is now underway, with word in the blogosphere saying none of the original cast members will probably be involved in the new film.