In Defense Of The New Buffy

 

This week’s announcement of a new Buffy The Vampire Slayer movie without Joss Whedon may have set the internet aflame in upset, but… Is it wrong that I think it might be a good idea? Please don’t kill me.

I should start, I guess, by owning up to my own Whedon fandom: I liked the original Buffy movie, and was a massive fan of the TV series. Angel kind of passed me by until the third season – I tuned in occasionally, but it didn’t really gel for me – and pretty much missed Firefly until reruns, at which point I fell in love with it (Serenity, too). Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog was pretty great, but I tend to think of Dollhouse as a misstep that may have been interesting, but certainly wasn’t good. Does that mean that I am a hater? I can’t quite tell, to be honest, because I’m certainly cautious about the idea of a Whedon Avengers movie and find myself hoping for the best for this Whedon-less Buffy.

Here’s the thing: This new Buffy feels like, at the very worst, an easily-ignorable addition to the franchise. It doesn’t mean that Joss has been robbed of doing more Buffy; unless I’ve missed something somewhere, he’ll still be involved with the Dark Horse comics – being relaunched and expanded next year – and it’s not like there was another Buffy movie or television series he was involved in that has been killed as a result of this news. It just means that someone will be doing a different Buffy that really, honestly, can be ignored if you’re not into it.

(I know, I know; this is the counter-argument to my feeling that Caprica somehow lessens Battlestar Galactica in retrospect. I am a fickle, contradictory beast, what can I say?)

And is it really that wrong to be curious about what someone else can do with the ideas behind Buffy? The notion that monsters and demons and horror ideas can be used as stand-ins for the teenage experience is surely potent enough to stand up to multiple explorations by multiple people, and I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t interested in seeing someone who’s actually been a teenage girl can bring to the whole “metaphor for teenage girldom” thing (Not to say that Joss couldn’t write teenage girls well, because – obviously, he could – but still). Am I sad that it’s going to be done as a reboot of something that ended less than ten years ago, and still exists in spin-offs and the hearts of fandom everywhere…? Well, yeah, to be honest – I’d much rather see a new idea than a rehash of an old one. But, to be cynical, any new idea would’ve just been branded a Buffy rip-off anyway, so at least this addresses the elephant in the room by… co-opting said elephant.

The oddest part of the whole thing – The part that, I think, catches a lot of folk off-guard – is that Whit Anderson, writer of the new movie, is a completely unknown quantity. No-one seems to know anything about her work, her style, her anything other than what appeared in her LA Times interview, and that brings with it all kinds of feelings for many people: What makes her the person to reboot this beloved franchise? Why is she so special? (A favorite comment from a disgruntled fan commented on the fact that the LA Times piece had such a large photo of her, as if the fact that she was attractive was enough to get her the job. Sadly, that’s not really the way Hollywood works, something I found out after years of expensive and ultimately useless plastic surgery). Admittedly, the fact that you can’t look at previous work and pull an opinion from that makes it so much easier to assume the worst, but I’m choosing to do the opposite: I’m going to hope that the only way an unknown writer gets a major studio to back such a potential nerdbomb as a Buffy reboot is by having an astonishingly good pitch that makes it worth all the hassle and ill will from fans who’d rather see the franchise dead than done without Joss.

I could be wrong. The end result might be a terrible, terrible thing that I’ll wish I could trade in for that amount of time and money back to use in similarly unproductive ways. But if that’s the case, then, screw it. I’ll just go to Netflix Streaming and watch “The Body” again, and think of happier times. Until then, though, I’m keeping fingers crossed and hoping that this reboot will mean more Buffy, and an introduction for all the people who never saw the show or read the comics or even knew she existed before. Once more, with feeling, you could say.

Sunday, November 28th, 2010 at 9:30am

by Graeme McMillan

Comic Book Resources

We need more vampire slayers — just not more Buffy

Warner Bros. had half the right idea with their Buffy the Vampire Slayer  remake. It's about time somebody picked up the baton Joss Whedon dropped seven freaking years ago. But we don't need more Buffy, just more heroes like her.

After I heard about the plans for a new Buffy movie without Whedon's involvement, I had profoundly mixed feelings, which it's taken me a while to sort through. I mean, I had the same feeling of "a disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out of terror yadda yadda" that everybody else had. I mean, Buffy is one of the great stories of our time, and a lackluster remake without the creator involved just obviously seems like bad news.

But after more consideration, I had a more nuanced feeling about this remake. First of all, the absence of Whedon's involvement is a symptom, not the cause, of the likely suckitude. Second of all, we need more heroes like Buffy — but more than that, I desperately want to see what the next thing after Buffy is. And third of all, there hasn't just been a shortage of strong female heroines since Buffy went away — there's been a shortage of strong heroes and stories about heroism, period. We're in a weirdly cynical era where we have tons of heroes but not much heroism.

So taking those one by one:

The absence of Joss is just a symptom.

You could make a great Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie without Joss Whedon's involvement — it's not likely, but it's not beyond the realm of possibility. It's not as if there's a secret Buffy formula that only Whedon knows — plenty of other writers have handled the character well, and there's much about her that's a tad generic, including the "there can be only one" thing.

Imagine, for a second, that Warners had hired writer extraordinaire Jane Espenson to write a Buffy movie script, instead of novice screenwriter Whit Anderson. Would you be as upset? I know I wouldn't.

And sweet muppety Odin knows, some of the recent Buffy season eight comics have had me wondering if Whedon himself still has any idea what to do with the character who made him famous.

But at the same time, we live in an era of cynical, dumbed-down remakes. Studios are constantly digging through the scrapheap of old stories, looking for pieces of IP that they can break down and sell for parts. They don't see anything unique about Buffy, any more than they do about Total Recall or any of the tons of other remakes they're pushing through. They're just brands that haven't been drained dry yet. They have some name recognition and a smidge of nostalgia value, which can be turned into money before they're tossed back on the heap. In other words, to the studios, Buffy is Mr. Peanut.

Where remakes have worked, it's been because the creators were willing to go back to the source material and really engage with it. Like in the case of the surprisingly good Let Me In — Matt Reeves was determined to go back to the original novel by John Ajvide, to create a fresh take on the novel's themes and ideas, instead of just doing a bad copy of the Swedish film. But that just brings us back to the fact that the source material of Buffy is in Whedon's head, if it's anywhere.

And looked at in that light, the decision to shut out Whedon feels cynical. How hard would have been to rope him in, in some kind of producer role? The absence of the character's creator, combined with the decision to hire a novice writer, just sounds suspiciously like a quick and dirty assembly-line remake, to mine the last bit of value out of the old girl.

And Anderson's comments to the L.A. Times also didn't fill me with confidence — they sounded like a summary of the movie and TV show by someone who'd seen a few episodes, but didn't really get the themes of sacrifice and strength of character that Whedon instilled into Buffy Summers. In particular there was a lot of talk about "duty and destiny" and the conflict between Buffy's responsibility to save the world and her reluctance to do it — which seems like a charcoal sketch of the character's conflict, not the rich character study that Whedon created.

So yeah, a Buffy movie without Whedon could be okay — but it probably won't.

We're still waiting for what comes after Buffy

Jeez, Hollywood. Buffy the Vampire Slayer went off the air in 2003. And we're still waiting for someone to take it to the next level.

Buffy made a bold statement in the context of 1990s pop culture: What if this tiny blonde girl, who looks like the victim in every horror movie ever, is actually the monster-killer? What if she's badder and tougher than everyone else? What if she's secretly grappling with the weight of the world because she's the only one who can save us all?

Whedon often talks about the idea for the original Buffy movie coming from the image of a girl running from a monster, like in every other horror film — but then it turns out she's actually hunting the monster, and she catches it by surprise. Because she's not just your typical sacrificial cheerleader.

That was a radical idea in 1992, and even in 1997. I would be very sad to think it would still be radical in 2012, or whenever this film comes out.

A lot of the themes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer ought to feel dated, even if they don't. The whole idea that even though she just looks like a regular cheerleader doesn't mean she's not something special, for example — we got another dose of that from Heroes, except it was stripped of all its humor and, well, heroism. The novelty of "a young girl who's not just a victim" definitely ought to have worn off by now.

Mind you, the theme of being torn between duty and your personal desires is fairly timeless and intrinsic to the "hero" thing — but Buffy did bring something special to it. Especially after the first season and a half, Buffy learns the value of sacrifice, and gains strength of character from making tough choices. She's not just permanently struggling against her destiny, and heroism doesn't just drag her down, it also enriches her life — it's complicated. And it's that complication that I'd love to see taken to the next level.

A lot of my favorite Buffy moments, not surprisingly, are the "fuck yeah" moments where you think Buffy's finally going to give up, but then she comes back twice as strong or does something surprising and awesome. People used to talk about how empowering Buffy was, and it's really true — at its best, the show was inspiring, and there hasn't really been anything like that since then.

So what kind of female heroes have we gotten after Buffy? It hasn't been a particularly great time, at least on screen. The best you can say, for the most part, is that women have graduated from "damsel in distress" to "sidekick who sometimes needs rescuing." The distinction is a subtle one, but it does carry some weight. Look at Theresa Palmer's character in The Sorcerer's Apprentice — she's mostly the love interest, but she does get to do something to help defeat the baddie. Similarly, I feel like a lot of action/adventure movies now have a role for the female badass who's not quite as awesome as the male hero, but still gets to do some stuff — like Helen Mirren in RED or Theresa Palmer (again!) in I Am Number Four.

So actually the way to get the kind of surprise that Buffy served up in the 1990s would be to have a female character who you think is going to be the "butt-kicking sidekick," but actually turns out to be more awesome than everyone else.

Actually, what may really rule — if we're incredibly lucky — is the upcoming Hunger Games movie. If the movie version of Katniss is half as great as the book version, she could really be our next Buffy.

But yeah, Buffy the Vampire Slayer seems like a trick you can only pull once — and then you really ought to find a new trick. As Whedon himself told Entertainment Weekly a couple weeks back in its big Wonder Woman article, we shouldn't necessarily hope for a Wonder Woman movie — but we should be clamoring for more wonder women.

We're not just lacking strong female heroes, we're lacking heroes

Can you name any other popular story of the past decade that's dealt with the cost — and the glory — of heroism and saving people the way Buffy the Vampire Slayer did? I can't, not really.

I really think Heroes, deep down, wanted to tell a story about heroism, but let's not talk about how that turned out. Lost flirted with the idea of showing someone becoming a hero, but we never quite got there. Most superhero movies are all wish fulfillment and shininess, with no real heroism depicted on screen. Just as we're suffering from a villain recession, we also haven't had a hero who sacrifices, and does the right thing in spite of the cost, and saves people. Not in a while anyway.

There have been hints of these themes a few times — Avatar, for all its faults, does show us Jake Sully making hard choices to become the hero who can save the Na'vi. The Dark Knight  deals a fair bit with the idea that being Batman comes with a heavy cost, and Bruce Wayne pays that cost because people need Batman. The short-lived show The Middleman was starting to say some really interesting stuff about the sacrifices that Wendy Watson makes to save the world, when it was yanked off the air by network fish zombies. (Edited to add: And people have mentioned some other great recent stories about real heroism in comments, notably Harry Potter and Supernatural.)

But mostly, we have spectacles with cookie-cutter heroes, who aren't particularly heroic, or even interesting for that matter. Our heroes either don't struggle with their responsibility at all, or they whine about how the burden of responsibility is crushing them. The themes of Buffy — like wanting a "normal life" in spite of having awesome superpowers — have degraded into a sort of dull whine of entitlement. We get the flashiness of having power, and the cost of having power — but nothing about how great it is to do the right thing.

The "refusing the call of heroism" portion of the "hero's journey" story has become the whole story — it was the entire arc (if there was one) of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and most of the arc of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, to name two random recent movies. Watching squirrely young dudes mope for an hour because they don't want to hang out with awesome giant robots or learn how to do cool magic any more may be your idea of fun, but it's not mine.

I know we live in a cynical age, and we don't feel like any one of us can make a real difference, because every war is a quagmire and every politician is bought and sold, yadda yadda. We see evil everywhere, but it's indistinct because it's systemic and we all, as grown-ups, consent to it to some degree because otherwise we'd have to go live in a hut somewhere. To some extent, our heroic power fantasies are meant to help us escape from this reality — if only we had a magic ring, we'd fix all these problems right quick! — but our heroic stories are also supposed to make us think about the real meaning of heroism. The hero's quest is not meant to be easy or always glamorous — but that makes it more heroic, not less.

With Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Whedon issued a challenge to storytellers everywhere — not just to tell better stories about heroic women, but to tell better stories about heroism, period. The challenge has not been answered. A rehash of Whedon's own vision is not an answer to his challenge — it's just more dumb profiteering. Step up, Hollywood — it's time to give us the next generation of Buffys.

I09

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Being Rebooted

 

It was recently announced that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is set for a theatrical reboot. The movie will include an all-new cast. Warner Bros. purchased the rights and are moving forward with production.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer began with a movie in 1992 starring Kristy Swanson and then spun into the popular TV show that ran for seven seasons (1997-2003) with Sarah Michelle Gellar in the lead role.

What has spurned backlash to this news is that Joss Whedon is not involved with the project in any way. Whedon wrote the film and was the creator and head writer of the TV series. Instead it will be Whit Anderson taking on the writing duties for the reboot. Anderson has no writing experience and a very light acting resume.

Pasta Padre

Hulk and Spidey and Buffy—What's With All the Reboots?

Today 9:30 AM PST by Leslie Gornstein

 

Why are we seeing so many stupid so-called "reboots" of old ideas like Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
—88Vibey, via the inbox

I hope you boarded up your windows before you sent me this. Vampire lovers are so rabid in their fandom they're liable to storm your house. (Here, I'll create a diversion for you: Robert Pattinson has a head like bleached a cinder block. Run!)

Anyway, here's why The Hulk, Buffy, Superman and Spider-Man are all being reset and retold from the beginning:

Money. Or, more specifically, guaranteed money.

"Reboots are going to succeed more often," says Tim League of the theater franchise Alamo Drafthouse.

"People are more aware of the concept you're promoting, so it's a safer route. And you succeed more often than you fail."

Even more importantly, he says, you're more likely to know your profits early. Advance ticket sales are much easier to pull off if customers know what they're going to see—well, in advance.

That's opposed to brand-new movie ideas, which do not lend themselves to pre-sales, League tells me. Instead, theater owners and moviemakers have to wait longer for their money to come in, because new ideas require time for good word of mouth to get around. (Of course, that did work out for Avatar.)

That idea also translates to television. The Hulk is coming back to TV, with the help of Pan's Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro, who is on board to co-create the new reboot.

Is it greedy for moviemakers to keep revisiting old ideas instead of working a little harder to find fresh ones? I'll tell you, in my latest podcast!

Answer Bitch

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Getting Movie Reboot Without Joss Whedon

Reboot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Confirmed

Thursday November 25, 2010

A remake of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie was rumored over a year ago, but now it appears that a big-screen reboot of the the TV show based on the movie (which included Buffy and a host of new characters) is on its way. The notoriously rabid fans of the show, however, probably won't be quite as enthused about the new version, since creator Joss Whedon won't have any involvement.

Perhaps just as surprising is the fact that the person writing the reboot -- Whit Anderson -- is an actress with little notable writing or acting experience. Regardless of her resumé, though, she's apparently written something that has impressed Warner Brothers and the producers enough to push for a theatrical release as early as late 2011...but more likely in 2012.

Horror.About

Buffy revamp drives a stake through fans' hearts

November 27, 2010

IT WAS the story the fans have long been waiting for: the return of Buffy, feminist icon and slayer of vampires - and this time on the big screen. Take that Twilight! But any good cheer was quickly drowned out by rage and upset this week as it emerged that Warner Bros was planning to make its film version of the cult TV series without Joss Whedon, the show's creator - and, it appears, without any of the cast of the long-running TV series.

Whedon reacted with fury. ''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,'' he said. ''I always hoped that Buffy would live on even after my death. But, you know, after.''

The writer of the new screen adaptation is Whit Anderson, a relatively unknown actor with only a smattering of screen credits, the most high profile being a small role in the Jim Carrey film Yes Man.
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''I was the same age as Buffy, and it was so rare to have a female lead character on TV in those days who was strong and capable and smart but also allowed to be feminine,'' she told the Los Angeles Times.

Whedon appears to have fallen victim to Buffy's unusual history. Starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Buffy the Vampire Slayer became a TV phenomenon when it premiered in 1997. It ended up running for 145 episodes and seven series, charting the life of an ordinary teenage girl who happens to kill vampires and other monsters by night.

The show hit upon a mix of ordinary teenage angst, humour and gore that earned it a devoted fanbase.

Whedon used the series to explore increasingly off-the-wall story ideas - including the episode entitled Once More with Feeling, in which the cast sing almost every line of dialogue.

But Buffy had originally seen the light of day five years earlier, in a feature film script, which Whedon had sold to director-producer team Fran and Kaz Kuzui. The first Buffy film emerged in 1992, with Kristy Swanson as the eponymous vampire-killer alongside Luke Perry and Rutger Hauer, but scored only moderate returns. Whedon is known to have been less than happy with it. After he was approached to turn the concept into a TV series, the Kazuis acted as hands-off executive producers alongside him. It was very much Whedon's show, but the Kuzuis retained their rights.

Last year, no doubt motivated by the continuing success of teen vampire films such as the Twilight series, the Kazuis said they hoped to revive the Buffy character.

No casting details have been announced, but one of the producers, Charles Roven, has dropped a hint that Buffy will be an older character this time. ''This is not your high school Buffy. She'll be just as witty, tough and sexy as we all remember her to be,'' he said.

Whedon is cynical about the likelihood of teen-vampire overkill - ''But seriously, are vampires even popular any more?'' - but is also realistic about the way the movie business operates. In an email to entertainment website E! Online, he wrote: ''Obviously I have strong, mixed emotions about something like this … 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 … I can't wish people who are passionate about my little myth ill. I can, however, take this time to announce that I'm making a Batman movie. Because there's a franchise that truly needs updating. So look for The Dark Knight Rises Way Earlier Than That Other One and Also More Cheaply and in Toronto, rebooting into a theatre near you.''

The new film's producers may have reason to fear anger among Buffy fans. The power of the community was shown when Whedon's 2002 sci-fi series Firefly was dropped after only 11 episodes by its parent network, Fox. After a campaign to save the show, Firefly fans persuaded another studio, Universal, to put a feature film, Serenity, into production.

This same vociferous online community has been registering its outrage at plans to produce a new Buffy film, among them the showbiz blogger Perez Hilton. ''We are not liking this,'' he said. ''Without creator Joss Whedon or the original cast, we're afraid this has failure written all over it. It's going to have to be pretty spectacular if it's going to impress us.''

Mike Goodridge, the editor of trade paper Screen International, feels it is too soon to write the film off. ''Charles Roven is pretty cool. He's the man that made the Batman movies with Chris Nolan, so he knows what he's doing - and lots of people were against that at the time. Remember, Buffy was nothing as a movie, and the audiences are very different from TV - Warner know that people have an appetite for revamps. I think it's a great idea.''

Guardian

Buffy movie to be made from the TV show

November 25, 2010

The circle of life is complete – there’s going to be a movie remake of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is going to be based on the TV show of the same name… which of course was in turn based on the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie.

There’s nothing nailed down yet in terms of cast or a director, but one thing is for certain – Josh Whedon, creator of both the original Buffy film and the TV series, is not going to be a part of the new remake.  The script was written by an up-and-coming writer who used to be an actress, and with the help of Warner Bros, they’re going to try to recreate Whedon’s magic formula without Whedon.  Good luck with that.

Snarkfood

Original 'Buffy' Weighs in on Upcoming Remake

11-23-10

The original Buffy the Vampire Slayer says she not only supports the upcoming remake but also wants to be in it.

"Let Buffy live; why not?" Kristy Swanson, who starred in the 1992 film, told Entertainment Weekly a day after Warner Bros. announced it had picked up movie rights to the remake.

"If they wanted me to be a part of it, I think that would be fantastic and that it would be a blast," she said.

Her comments don't echo those of the character's creator, Joss Whedon, who on Monday expressed his disappointment in the reboot.

"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," he told E! Online.

But Swanson was optimistic in the reboot, even without the participation of Whedon.

"There are die-hard Joss Whedon fans who absolutely love him to death, and rightly so; he's a brilliant man, no doubt," she said. "I love everything Buffy. I don't care who's doing it."

Luke Perry, who starred with Swanson in the movie, declined to comment to EW through his spokesperson.

Hollywood Reporter

Original 'Buffy' Creator Peeved About New Film

11/23/10

Joss Whedon: 'I don't love the idea of my creation in other hands.'
Victoria Fitzgerald

Joss Whedon, creator of hit TV series Buffy The Vampire Slayer, has blasted Warner Bros.' decision to create a brand new Buffy film.

Whedon wrote the 1992 Buffy The Vampire Slayer movie starring Kirsty Swanson and Luke Perry, which was directed by Fran and Rubel Kasui and Kaz Kazui, who also owned the rights to the movie. Joss also wrote, produced, and directed the TV series.

However, Fran and Rubel Kasui and Kaz Kazui have now passed over the movie rights to Warner Bros., according to Deadline.com.

In a statement to E! Entertainment, the Buffy creator said, "Obviously I have strong, mixed emotions about something like this.”

He added, "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. And there is no legal grounds for doing anything other than sighing audibly."

He continued light heartedly, "I can't wish people who are passionate about my little myth ill. I can, however, take this time to announce that I'm making a Batman movie. Because there's a franchise that truly needs updating. So look for The Dark Knight Rises Way Earlier Than That Other One And Also More Cheaply And In Toronto, rebooting into a theater near you."

The updated version will apparently be written by Whit Anderson, and will show the slayer’s life after high school. The Dark Knight producer, Charles Roven, is also set to join the team.

The Celebrity Cafe

Buffy cast react to Joss Whedon-less Buffy The Vampire Slayer movie remake

Written by Kevin BeaumontgravatarcloseAuthor: Kevin Beaumont Name: Kevin Beaumont

Yesterday, Warner Bros Pictures announced they are developing a new Buffy The Vampire Slayer movie – according to their press release, from Buffy “creators Fran and Kaz Kuzui”.  This caused the internet to turn on its ‘what the frak’ face, along with a few former cast members – given Buffy the Vampire Slayer was created by writer Joss Whedon.

David Boreanaz reacts to being told about the BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER movie

Former cast member David Boreanaz (‘Angel‘) produced this photograph of himself reacting to the news.  Eliza Dushku (‘Faith’) was more blunt: “Joss [Whedon] made the Buffster [and without] him… I just don’t trust the girl. Or the world.”

Amber Benson (‘Tara’) jokes “Apparently, they’re rebooting ‘Buffy‘ [without] Joss Whedon: I told him that asking to play the title role would frighten the Studio Execs.”

Actress Emma Caulfield (‘Anya’) reacted to the news simply: “ahahahhaha..”

Anthony Stewart Head (‘Giles’) addressed the issue directly: “The bottom line is if a movie was ever to be made, it should be made with Joss Whedon, whether it’s a retrospective or not. But it would be madness to do it without him. [The Kazuis] have the rights to because they have the rights to the original movie, but it should be interesting to see. It may be a bit like watching a car wreck.”

An even more interesting angle to this tale is the choice of talent to produce the movie.  Warner Bros Pictures — a studio which only does big budget, worldwide theatre releases — has chosen a writer who appears to have no prior movie writing experience, nor TV, nor theatre.  Additionally, The Guardian reports she has been “asked to write and star in [the] vampire movie”.  As Buffy.

So, what is going on here…  My take?  They’re trying to power play Joss Whedon.  By putting out a writer without commercial writing experience to take on a franchise which had been previously spearheaded by an Oscar nominee writer, to rumours of the character being played by an actress whose acting credentials appear to barely exist — I believe they are trying to force Joss Whedon to join the project.  Reboots, when they’ve worked previously, have long established industry talent working on them for long durations to make sure the investment pays off.

The reality is this – instead of being excited by the twilight on the horizon, a majority of both the Buffy fans, the former TV show cast members and mainstream press alike are looking at this and giggling.  It’s going to be the funniest movie release of 2011/12, should it happen.  Producer of this reboot, Charles Roven says, “There is an active fan base eagerly awaiting this character’s return to the big screen.”  Far from boycotting the movie, I’m ready and waiting to see Warner Bros attempt with the kind of glee I reserved for Tuesday nights on FOX.  You could argue that’s the intention, but it isn’t – either the studio hasn’t thought this one through, or they’re trying to drive the franchise close to the cliff to see if Whedon saves it.  My vote?  Buffy will live forever.  Just not right now.

End of Show

New Buffy the Vampire Slayer film director: "I didn't really watch much television at all"

November 24, 2010

I wasn’t moved all that much one way or the other when I first heard that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is being remade as a movie (after first debuting as a so so movie and then transforming into the legendary and groundbreaking television show).

Things get remade all the time, I half-figured as my mind was blitzed with 700,000 other things during my webby day. Is it really all that big a deal in comparison to the U.S. unemployment rate or the creepily depressing events going down on the Korean peninsula, I asked. Although I didn’t really ask, of course, until just now as I’m writing the words.

But then when I did take a quick second out to dig into the details a little bit, I started to get pissed.

Here’s why: the screenwriter of the new Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie is not going to be Joss Whedon. I knew that going in, but take a minute to consider. You’re the screenwriter that has to come in and replace Joss Freaking Whedon. Talk about stepping into the footprints of a giant. And who does Warner Bros. decide to slate for the challenging and unenviable task? Kevin Smith, or maybe a wildcard like a Tim Burton or Quentin Tarantino?

Uh, that would be a no:

Warner Bros. has announced a scriptwriter will pen a new Buffy the Vampire Slayer film without the involvement of show creator Joss Whedon.

Whit Anderson, a little-known actress with no previous profile as a screenwriter, has been signed to author the script.

Okay, an unknown. Fine. But this is what really destroys me:

"I didn't really watch much television at all, but I always watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer," she told the Los Angeles Times.

So, it’s great that Whit grew up enjoying Buffy, but it may help a little bit to realize that one of the reasons that Buffy was so bold and innovative is that it played defiantly and playfully and artfully against every television show convention imaginable. Whedon proved to be an absolute master at taking the audience places that they didn’t expect to go, all while painting a deliriously entertaining canvass that’s absolutely drenched in pop cultural references… including television. Perhaps Whit is a filmologist wunderkind of some kind and will do the same thing for a revamped Buffy franchise in the cinema realm, but I will remain deeply skeptical until further notice.
In essence, it’s very hard to disagree with Whedon himself when he 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,"

TV Geek Army

Oh, Buffy! I don't know whether to weep or cheer

Lucy Mangan

Tuesday 23 November 2010

A new Buffy the Vampire Slayer film is to be made – without Joss Whedon. Can worshippers bear to watch?


Sarah Michelle Gellar, in a scene from the cult American TV show Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Photograph: PA

Oh, this is terrible. I feel like Buffy at the end of season two, with Angel poised on her swordtip and torn between her loyalty to the man(-type thing) she loves and her duty to a higher calling. What do we do? Where do we turn?

Such is the dilemma posed by the news that a new Buffy movie is to be made – without Joss Whedon. The creator of the Slayer, first incarnated in the 1992 film starring Kristy Swanson and then reborn as the protagonist of the world's best ever television series, does not own the film rights. Those who do – Kaz Kuzui, executive producer on the series, and his wife Fran Rubel – have decided to reboot the franchise without him.

Spike himself would surely blanch – were he not already bloodless – at the heartlessness, the brutality of such an undertaking. To remake Buffy without the man whose controlling intelligence and vision informed it more thoroughly than was the case with any other series in TV history (at least until David Simon's The Wire and Matthew Weiner's Mad Men) seems, at first glance, like a very special form of idiocy.

And yet. And yet. Once the first shock has worn off, what – if we don the Willow Rosenberg mantle of indefatigable optimism – are we left with? The chance of more Buffy. The remoter chance – the vagaries of film-making being what they are – of more good Buffy. Not the same Buffy, not Whedon's Buffy, but perhaps something true enough to the original not to induce screaming agony in those of us who worship at the Joss-SMG altar. Or, if it's bad, the knowledge that it can safely be dismissed. Without the Whedon imprimatur, it is non-canonical. It cannot taint him or all that we already know and love. As Raymond Chandler once comforted himself and his fans after a number of his books were unsatisfactorily filmed – "Look, there [the books] all are. They're fine. They're not ruined. They're still there."

So, sprinkle your box set with holy water and start channelling the white magicks towards a happy outcome, but don't forget to cover your bases with a phone call or two to the Master and Drusilla. Because if Buffy becomes a Hilary Duff vehicle or the means of an attempted Lohan comeback, I promise you this: Sunnydale's gonna burn.


Guardian

The Ridiculous Quest for a Joss-Less Buffy Movie

By Clarissa on November 22nd, 2010

Look, let's be honest.  Sometimes remakes aren't a bad thing.  Or "reboots", if you want to call it that.  When Christopher Nolan took over the Batman franchise he breathed new life into it and made two amazing movies (with a third on its way).  I even liked the rebooted Star Trek, but I didn't watch the original shows or movies, so I honestly have no idea whether the real fans felt upset by the remake or whether they felt enough of the original elements remained.

But now the LA Times wants to introduce us to the new writer of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer movie.  Let's recap.  Before it was a cult show on The WB and UPN networks, Buffy was originally a movie staring Kristy Swanson and Luke Perry.  Frankly, it was a pretty terrible movie.  Campy and cheesy.  I mean, yeah, I still watch it everytime it's on TV, but it can't touch the quality of the Buffy television show.

And let's be clear, the Buffy show also had its faults.  It's not like Joss Whedon (the creator and showrunner of the Buffy universe) is infallible.  There were many storylines in the Buffy show that many fans, myself included, couldn't stand (pretty much everything wtih Riley or Dawn, for example).

But we were willing to overlook that, because when Buffy was firing on all cylinders - and it often was - it was heaven.  It was a show with thinly veiled messages about high school and what it meant to grow up, and vampires.  In other words, perfection.

Now the LA Times has written an article introducing us to the new writer for the new Buffy movie.  That poor Whit Anderson.  She's officially the most hated screenwriter in cult fandom today.  The truth is, I don't know if she's going to write a good script or not, but what irks me the most is the cavalier way in which the entire process is being handled.

Let's start with the title of the article: "Joss who?  Meet the new writer of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer film".  That's the worst sort of insult.  I don't worship Joss Whedon as my own personal Jesus, but the man has a genius for writing in particular that cannot be denied.  He breathed life into the Buffy characters, wrote some of its best scenes and dialogue, and created a show that deserved more mainstream recognition than it got.  So, please, LA Times, don't be cavalier and throw away Whedon's contribution to the Buffy universe just because you want to introduce us to the new writer.

Also insulting is producer Charles Roven's statement that "There is an active fan base eagerly awaiting this character’s return…. While this is not your high-school Buffy, she’ll be just as witty, tough and sexy as we all remember her to be.”  Which actually tells me that someone out there hasn't done their homework.  Because the truth is, there is an active fanbase eagerly awaiting this character's return.  Assuming, of course, we're talking about the same character.

If Buffy isn't written by Joss or played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, then we're not talking about the same character.  If the familiar supporting characters (Willow, Giles, Spike, Xander, etc) won't be appearing in the story then we're not even talking about the same show.  All you're talking about is a girl who happens to hunt - and sometimes date - vampires.  So basically you're talking about every generic vampire story these days (except Buffy is obviously more kick-ass than Bella Swan).

Please don't insult real Buffy fans by assuming you know what we want and then say we're begging for your new version.  Because we're not.  This new movie may very well end up attracting a new group of fans who are interested in the recent vampire craze and never really watched Buffy before.  But it's not going to attract most of the die-hard fans.

I might be willing to let the whole situation slide if someone told me that Joss wasn't involved, but other members of his writing team were.  People like David Greenwalt, Jane Espenson, Doug Petrie, David Fury or Marti Nixon.  Then I might not be so anxious.  But all I hear is that the new producers are taking the Buffy name and making it something new and unrecognizable.

In the article, Anderson said:

    “The thing that was so wonderful about ‘Buffy’ is what made it special was so timeless,” Anderson said.  “The deep struggle she had with duty and destiny, that tug between what you’re supposed to be doing and what you want to be doing. The fate of the world is on her shoulders but some days she wakes up and she just doesn’t want to do it. And are we doomed and destined to love someone?

She's not wrong.  That struggle between duty, destiny and what you really want to do is not a theme that's associated with Buffy alone.  It's one of a few limited blueprints from which all stories are eventually derived.  But that doesn't make any story about a girl torn between destiny and love (or destiny and wanting a normal life) a Buffy story.  That just makes her a girl holding a wooden stake.

clarissa @ tvovermind.com
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TV Overmind

A New Buffy Movie sans Joss Whedon

November 22, 2010

Into every generation, a Slayer is born . . .

Turns out that’s more accurate than we originally thought.  First there was the 1992 Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie with Kristy Swanson and Pee-Wee Herman, then there was the television show starring Sarah Michelle Gellar that lasted 7 seasons, and now Whit Anderson is penning a script for a reboot to be released by Warner Brothers.

Kristy Swanson & Luke Perry in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" movie

No, I don’t know who Whit Anderson is, either, but her IMDB page reveals that she has acted in 3 films and has scripted . . . um, none.  I’m not quite sure how she even got involved in this project, but according to Hero Complex, she is a fan of the television series.  That’s a step in the right direction, at least, but fans aren’t thrilled that this will be a Whedon-less Buffy.  Myself included.

Joss Whedon wrote the script for the original film and is the creator and the guiding hand for the television series.  His devotees are loyal and have followed him from Firefly to Dollhouse (both short-lived series), but he wants no involvement in the new film: “I think that’s something better left untouched by me. So, I wish them luck,” he said in a 2009 interview.

This reboot could be a success, since fans are hungry for more Buffy, but I think they want more of the characters and actors they know and love.  Will we see Angel, Spike, Drusilla, or even Oz?  I doubt it.  (And Buffy without Spike is no Buffy at all!) Likely this story will feature mostly new characters.  It may not even be set in California, much less Sunnydale.  It’s impossible to predict what elements will remain from either the 1992 movie or the series.

However, it’s reasonable to assume the protagonist will be a girl named Buffy, and she slays vampires.  I also suspect she’ll have a Watcher.  Aside from that, it’s anyone’s guess.

I just hope it doesn’t suck.

“To make a vampire they have to suck your blood. And then you have to suck their blood. It’s like a whole big sucking thing.” – Buffy, “Welcome to the Hellmouth”

Big Shiny Robot

Buffy the Vampire Slayer without Joss Whedon? That's been going on for years

November 24, 2010

Warner Bros plan to make another Buffy movie without its creator is like fanfiction – but not as interesting.

There is a huge body of online fanfiction about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

Warner Bros's decision to make a Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie without any involvement of its original creator, Joss Whedon, or any of his TV show's cast, is a win-win situation, however personally and professionally galling it is to have his best creation taken away from him.

If the movie crashes and burns, the decision to leave him out of it becomes the reason for its failure; if, on the other hand, it succeeds, he gets the kudos for creating a modern myth so powerful that his stories can be told without his involvement. Actually, we already know the latter to be the case – because fanfiction drawing on Whedon's Buffy and its spin-off series Angel is one of the larger and better-written bodies of such work on the internet.

Interestingly, Whedon has always been positive about fanfiction:

    "I love it. I absolutely love it. I wish I had grown up in the era of fanfiction, because I was living those shows and those movies that I loved and I would put on the score to Superman and just relive the movie over and over."

He has even been positive about slash fiction, which depicts romantic or sexual relationships between fictional characters of the same sex. "In my world, heroes bugger each other senseless. Not all of them, but more than you'd think, and probably not who you're thinking."

I have to declare an interest here. While most people concerned with BTVS – as fans call Buffy for short – know me as the editor of a collection of critical analyses of the show, I have always led a double life. Some time ago, I was talking to a serious industry person about my writing and hers; she said diffidently that she has published some fiction, all of it on the net. "So you write fanfic?" I asked. "Which fandom?" She told me, and I realised I had read quite a bit of it. She suddenly looked at me with a wild surmise, "Oh my God" she said, "you're RozK."

People get into writing fanfic for a lot of reasons, and I can't speak for anyone but myself. When I started, I had published some quite well-thought-of genre short stories, but was seriously blocked as the result of a novel that crashed and burned. I was feeling nervous about writing seiously – perhaps pompously – about a show mostly watched by people much younger than I was, and wanted to demonstrate that I was just a fan like any other. I had enjoyed the fanfiction I had read as part of my research on the show, and wanted to give something back: the gift relationship as described by Richard Titmuss is a major feature of fandom. My fanfic days also taught me a lot about writing quickly and to order, just as obsessing with Whedon's shows taught me a lot about writing crisp dialogue.

I was particularly intrigued by the idea of slash fic – there are just not enough lesbian and gay relationships in popular culture to forego the chance of adding more informally. BTVS was, from an early stage, a slash-friendly show – Whedon said "all the relationships in the show are kind of romantic" and it was the sudden wave of Buffy/Faith fic that partly prompted the shading of the relationship into something quasi-erotic. In later seasons, Buffy's friend Willow came out as lesbian – other characters, notably the vampires Darla and Drusilla were shown as bisexual. Even Buffy herself has a lesbian affair in Whedon's BTVS comic book, Season Eight. Some creators mind what we do to their characters – Whedon mostly never did.

It would be hypocritical for me to object in principle to what Warner Bros may choose to do. After all, in my own work, I mashed up BTVS, Ugly Betty and Six Feet Under and put Buffy's cheerleader friend Cordelia through endless romantic angst with other characters Faith, Willow and the robot double of Buffy. One site I frequented back in my fanfic days made a point of trying to get at least one story for every conceivable romantic combination. Other friends, less interested in slash, wrote crossover fiction that involved in the Buffyverse everyone and anyone from the Saint to Father Ted to Noggin the Nog. Warner Bros are unlikely – I fear – to do anything to Buffy as comprehensively weird as that.

Guardian

Buffy movie will slay our lust for vampires

By Tim Robey 4:03PM GMT 24 Nov 2010

What is Buffy without the involvement of creative mastermind Joss Whedon, asks Tim Robey.

There’s just no stopping the Hollywood remake factory – notional spanners such as “but the new ones are lousy!” and “aren’t we bored of these?” somehow never manage to mangle up the ongoing conveyor belt.

But at least some articulate words of tongue-in-cheek protest are currently been flung in its direction. Presenting a feature spin-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer without the involvement of creative mastermind Joss Whedon, not to mention any of the cast, is like trying to bake a pizza without the dough. Whedon’s entertaining response to the news is a reminder in itself of the savvy, quippy, culturally-aware qualities he brought to Buffy in the first place.

Though he’s virtually disowned it, Whedon has the screenplay credit even on the idea’s foetal and least successful incarnation, as a 1992 film starring Kristy Swanson, Donald Sutherland and Luke Perry. The fact that he was able to shepherd this semi-abortive big-screen debut into eight seasons of cult nirvana is all the possessor’s credit on a franchise anyone needs.

At the same time, Whedon knows full well that he’s the last person in a position to bemoan the dry well of original ideas in Hollywood. He’s currently working on Marvel superhero team-up-flick The Avengers, which he sardonically refers to in his open letter as “my Avengers idea that I made up myself”, while his quips about starting his own rival Batman series are unlikely to have Warner Bros’ lawyers racing to slap him with an injunction, unless they have even less sense of humour than you’d expect.

Still, though he admits to having “no legal grounds for doing anything other than sighing audibly”, it’s hard to believe Whedon isn’t genuinely peeved beneath all the winking. As a writer, he’d always brought a little extra to his projects – even when that extra overeggs the pudding, as it did a bit in Alien: Resurrection.

What is Buffy likely to be without him? I greatly fear some kind of emo revamp. And disingenuous though he’s being asking “but seriously, are vampires even popular any more?”, I think there’s room for an irony-free question as well. Do we really need yet more?

Telegraph

Who will be the next Buffy in movie remake?

November 23, 2010

Warner Bros. has obtained the rights to remake Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the 1992 movie that inspired the cult TV series of the same title.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Joss Whedon, who wrote the screenplay for the original movie and created the TV series, will not be involved in the remake written by actress turned screenwriter Whit Anderson.

In a statement, producer Charles Roven said of the remake, "While this is not your high school Buffy, she'll be just as witty, tough, and sexy as we all remember her to be."

A cast for the remake has not yet been announced.

The 1992 original starred Kristy Swanson as vampire-hunting high school cheerleader Buffy Summers and Beverly Hills, 90210 star Luke Perry.

In the TV series, Buffy was played by Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Herald Sun