Whedon Turned Down ‘Buffy’ Remake

Published by Jeff Leins on June 14, 2009

Last month we brought you the news of a planned reboot of the 1992 movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  It’s original director, Fran Rubel Kuzui, is developing an updated version along with her husband and has been shopping it around to studios.

The idea is to do a darker take with new characters to capture the vampire craze dominating the zeitgeist right now.  The Twilight Saga: New Moon is rapidly approaching, “True Blood” sinks its teeth into a second season starting tonight, the Underworld trilogy is on DVD now, Let the Right One In (awesome original and ill-advised redo), and a few others.  Even Spider-Man may or may not fight Morbius, a giant vampire villain rumored for Spider-Man 4.  Everyone has vampire fever, except I think this one in particular is going to face major opposition.

The problem is they’re doing it without the original writer, Joss Whedon, who expanded the franchise into two successful TV series.  When the news broke, Whedon simply said, “I hope it’s cool.” According to Entertainment Weekly, the producers did reach out to him after the word got out about the reboot.  Whedon turned them down.  “I think that’s something better left untouched by me. So, I wish them luck,” he said.

There was also a bogus rumor online last week about Megan Fox playing Buffy.  It couldn’t be more false.  They don’t even have a script for this remake yet, much less a director.  Maybe she’ll be considered down the road, but right now it’s a complete fabrication.