‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ movie looking for new writer

 

Screenwriter Whit Anderson (Sam Comen)

Dec. 22, 2011

That big-screen revamp of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” has been dealt a setback — it looks as though the movie’s first-time screenwriter bit off more than she could chew.

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Two sources close to the project say that the script submitted this past summer by writer Whit Anderson fell far short of expectations and, in the end, was rejected completely. That’s news that will spark celebration from some longtime “Buffy” fans who were less than thrilled by the prospects of a “Buffy” revival that didn’t involve Joss Whedon. Whedon, now directing “The Avengers” for Marvel,  himself took a few shots at the reboot project — although he did so with a sly wink.

“This is a sad, sad reflection on our times,” Whedon said last November when that deal was announced, “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.”

As for the future of “Buffy”? A new writer is being sought but the entire endeavor may have lost some steam. There also might be some healthy fear among the producers who witnessed a spasm of fan criticism when the project was first publicized.

“If you’re going to bring it back, you have to do it right,” one key player in the project told Hero Complex. “[Anderson] came in with some great ideas and she had reinvented some of the lore and it was pretty cool but in the end there just wasn’t enough on the page.”

— Geoff Boucher

LATimes