Worst. idea. ever. – Buffy, Rebooted… WITHOUT Joss Whedon
Buffy being remade
*sigh* we posted about this over a year ago, and I was hoping it would stay just a rumour. But unfortunately not…
The WB have announced they are ‘rebooting’ Buffy the Vampire Slayer – WITHOUT Joss Whedon.
Atlas Entertainment’s Charles Roven and Steve Alexander will produce the feature film alongside Doug Davison and Roy Lee of Vertigo Entertainment (The Ring, How to Train Your Dragon, The Departed). Whit Anderson is writing the script.
Okay… first major thing to piss me off in the official press release:
“Warner Bros. Pictures optioned the rights from creators Fran and Kaz Kuzui.”
NO. no no no NO NO. They were just the producers. Joss created the Buffy we all know and love. If fact, the one time Fran actually got to go anything ‘creative’ with the franchise was when she directed the original, and dreadful Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie (if your a Buffy fan and have never seen it, it really is fascinating to see Joss’s script mangled so appallingly.) Unfortunately, due to the deal that was made when that movie was green lit, the Kuzui’s retain the rights to resell Buffy…
Next bit from the official press release to annoy me:
“There is an active fan base eagerly awaiting this character’s return to the big screen.”
Yes and no… We’d love to see Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy on the big screen, maybe continuing some of the awesome work Joss and the Mutant Enemy alumni have been doing on the comic books. What we’re not eagerly awaiting is someone to come along, unsanctioned by the show’s creator and rape its memory!
What Joss Says
See, all the ill will now pouring out from that ‘active fan base’ could have been easily avoided if someone had at least had a conversation with Joss about it, and try and get some sort of blessing from him. As you can tell by the following statements, Joss himself is less than impressed, saying “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…”
What the Cast Say
David Boreanaz's response on twitter to the news.
The ex-cast are also less than impressed with the news. Here’s a roundup of the cast comments from Twitter:
Eliza Dusku (Faith) says “Joss made the “Buffster” & w/out him… I just don’t trust the girl. Or the world.”
Juliet Landau (Drusilla) added “Buffy movie reboot without Joss. So uncool. 
“
Emma Caulfield (Anya) – “Buffy reboot? ahahahhaha..”
Amber Benson (Tara) had the rather more lighthearted “I told [Joss] that asking to play the title role would frighten the Studio Execs.”
Maurissa Tancharoen (wife of Jed Whedon, and co-writer of Dr. Horrible) – “Yet to comment on this Buffy reboot sans #Whedon because I can’t find the words. And the words I have so far are NSFW or for being a lady.”
David Boreanaz (Angel) also responded on twitter (see pic) when told by his Bones producer.
Buffy Getting ‘Rebooted’?
For the love of… Someone, make them stop!
Kuzui's first dire attempt at a Buffy movie.
Given that the only thing that didn’t suck in the 1992 Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie was the script, the idea of the producers/director rebooting (there’s that word again) Buffy without any direction from it’s founding visionary Joss Whedon, fills me with 7 different types of horror. But according to Hollywood Reporter, that’s exactly what Vertigo Entertainment along with original movie director Fran Rubel Kuzui and her huband Kaz Kuzui are apparently thinking of doing.
I know with the sucess of the Twilight movie vampires are hot property again, but do they honestly think ‘rebooting’ Buffy so soon after it was such a tv hit is a good idea? Someone really needs to point out to the Kuzui’s and Vertigo that just because you can do something, it doesn’t mean you should…
As Buffy alumni Tim Minear pointed out “…the main reason I do not want to see a movie done by these people without Joss… cause even with him the first time around the movie still had some major suckage.” The most appropriate remark i’ve seen on this subject though comes from web comic artist Neill Cameron – “This must be what religious people feel like when someone desecrates their holy text”.
ITV’s Demons Series 1
ITV's Demons
ITV series Demons came to it’s conclusion on Saturday (apparently with it’s lowest viewing figures yet – 3.42m), so i thought i’d pass on some musings i’ve had about Demons 1st run.
For those that haven’t seen Demons, on paper it reads like a pretty reasonable idea for a Saturday evening show. Teenager Luke Rutherford is happy going about his teenage life when Rupert Galvin, his american uncle turns up out of the blue claiming Luke is the last descendant of the Van Helsing line, and he’s here to train him in the art of slayin… erm… ‘smiting’ demons. Luke is helped along on his adventures by a couple of other hangers on. Ruby – his best friend who’s completely besotted with the young Van Helsing, and Mina Harker – can knock out a decent tune as a concert pianist… but then, being a vampire (albeit, one controlling her feeding urges via transfusion), she’s had enough time to practice over the years.
If some of this is sounding familiar…
‘Old guy turns up out of the blue to warn young person that they are last in the line of great warriors who need to battle members of the afterlife with help from a neutered vampire and love struck sidekick’…
…you wouldn’t be the first person to think ‘Buffy lite’… I’d like to say this was an unfair assessment, but frankly, it isn’t. The ITV Demons website even refers to him as Luke the Teenage Vampire Smiter so there’s no denying where they take their influence from! It does really look like some executive watched a few Buffy episodes and said to a writer “make me that, set in London, but change it enough so we don’t get sued”. You do wonder if they know the show isn’t really cutting it when, in episode 6, Luke makes a remark regarding his current situation as being “like The Da Vinci Code”… which i took to mean, looked good on paper, but fell apart on screen… I have no issue with people paying homage to the cult of Whedon. The problem though with most shows that try to emulate Buffy & Angel is their totally missing the key ingredients of Joss Whedon’s writing and guidance.
Gladiolus Thrip - The child catcher with a plastic beak
If it does make it to a 2nd series, there’s a few things i’d like to see changed… Make the monsters creepier rather than glorified panto villains. I have nothing against Mckenzie Crook, but the character of Gladiolus Thrip was just ill conceived… The child catcher with a plastic beak isn’t going to cut it. This isn’t the first foray into the British fantasy/sci fi genre for the writing/production team. With people from Sky 1‘s HEX, and the BBC‘s rather more successful Merlin, you would have expected them to have learnt a bit more than they have. But really, if your going to try and emulate Buffy they really need to sort the scripts out.
I think there’s a germ of a good idea in there, and the acting from the leads is fine. Phil’s american accent seems okay to me, but then i’m not american, so what do I know… What Demons is really missing is a strong show runner to boot it in the right direction. A slightly later time slot might do it some favours, or at least push the boundaries a bit more.
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Ripper Update
Last year at ComicCon there was a load of buzz about the muted buffy spin off Ripper being nearly signed and sealed… Then… Nothing… So, what’s the status at the moment. Well, due to Dollhouse being picked up, pretty much up in the air still…
From Digital Spy who spoke to Anthony Head recently:
“The latest is that I was over in LA last year at about this time. I bumped into Julie Gardner from BBC Wales who said ‘has anything ever happened to that?’ And at the same time I had just been speaking to Joss [Whedon] saying that there are a lot of people who keep asking about it. He said ‘Is there anybody at the BBC I can talk to about it?’ so I introduced him to Julie Gardner and they got on very well… and then the writers’ strike happened and Fox picked up an idea of his called Dollhouse that he’s doing with Eliza Dushku. So the answer is that there is a possibility of something happening… the story that he’s written could adapt to being a one-off story not necessarily related to Buffy. All that means that there is the will and there is the means. It’s a question of how, when and if it [comes together] through the next year or so.”
And this from the Beeb:
“There’s been vague talk for some time – it was a series and then a one-off film called Ripper. Creator Joss Whedon is busy with another project, I’m tied up too, so at the moment I’d just say that it’s still out there.”
So… still not looking good for a return to the Buffyverse anytime soon. Still, we have Dollhouse to look forward to. Plus i still think Ripper has the best chance of any of the Buffy spin off projects. I can wait a little longer for it.
