(Photo Credit: 20th Century Television)
Following the surprising news about Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot’s cancellation, a new report claimed that original star Sarah Michelle Gellar initially had a small screen time in the pilot. Gellar played the iconic character for seven seasons, which aired from 1997 to 2003 on The WB and UPN.
What was Sarah Michelle Gellar’s original role in the Buffy pilot?
According to Variety, the original script of the Buffy reboot pilot only featured one line from Gellar. Unlike what fans were expecting, Gellar’s Buffy Summers was initially supposed to only appear at the end, where she would be seen working in an office in New York City. Fans would have been reintroduced to Buffy as a normal office worker, whose peaceful life will soon get interrupted by emails from Sunnydale, California.
The outlet shared a description of Buffy’s brief scene from the original pilot script, which reads, “After the conclusion of the Sunnydale story, the action moves to a ‘beautiful autumn day’ in New York City, when a ‘woman in a pantsuit’ walks into the office building for a multinational insurance company. ‘She looks smart, professional, happy to be one of the many in a field of cubicles,’ read the stage directions, and her nameplate says ‘Anne Summers.’ When one of her colleagues chides her, saying she wouldn’t want to be late to the morning meeting, Buffy says, ‘Nope… wouldn’t want that.’”
The excerpt continues, “Buffy, happily, is an anonymous drone in a cubicle, just living a normal person’s life — given how conflicted she was about being the chosen one on ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’ and bearing the burdens of, as the show put it, saving the world a lot, this life choice makes a certain kind of sense. But Buffy’s peace wouldn’t have lasted for long, because on her work computer, as she’s in her morning meeting, her email inbox starts being flooded with insurance claims from Sunnydale, California.”
Due to Gellar’s little screen time in the original script, the pilot was rewritten to feature more Buffy appearances. Despite the rewrite, the outlet’s sources suggested that the project was ultimately deemed “unsalvageable,” with Hulu executives feeling it still wasn’t good enough to live up to the fans’ expectations, which led them to their decision to cancel. The outlet’s sources also pointed out Academy Award winner Chloe Zhao‘s inexperience with mainstream television as one of the reasons why the pilot failed. Some say the pilot was reportedly “under-shot,” while the actors were “under-directed.”
The canceled Buffy pilot was written and directed by Nora Zuckerman and Lila Zuckerman, who were also serving as showrunners. It would have been led by Skeleton Crew star Ryan Kiera Armstrong as the newest Slayer. Zhao directed the pilot and executive produced with Gellar, Gail Berman, Fran Kuzui, Kaz Kuzi, and Dolly Parton. It was a production by 20th Television and Searchlight Television.
(Source: Variety)
