Buffy the Vampire Slayer's new showrunner responds to reboot backlash: "There's only one Buffy"

The revamped series will introduce us to a different Slayer – rather than casting a new actress as the original Buffy Summers

Buffy the Vampire Slayer staring into camera

Getty/EBG

Published: Friday, 27 July 2018 at 10:48 am

The showrunner of the new Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot has declared she won't be re-casting the role of Buffy Summers.

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When news broke that a revamp (or re-"VAMP") of Buffy was in the works at 20th Century Fox, there was immediate concern: would someone else be taking over the iconic role from Sarah Michelle Gellar? Why mess with a masterpiece of 90s television?

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But showrunner Monica Owusu-Breen has issued a statement reassuring fans that "there is only one Buffy" – and it looks like we'll be getting a new Slayer for the modern age instead.

"For seven seasons, I watched Buffy Summers grow up, find love, kill that love. I watched her fight, and struggle and slay," she wrote on Twitter.

"There is only one Buffy. One Xander, one Willow, Giles, Cordelia, Oz, Tara, Kendra, Faith, Spike, Angel. They can’t be replaced. Joss Whedon’s brilliant and beautiful series can’t be replicated. I wouldn’t try to,” she wrote.

And in a teaser for what's to come, she added: "But here we are, twenty years later. And the world seems a lot scarier. So maybe, it could be time to meet a new Slayer... And that's all I can say."

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Original series creator Joss Whedon is involved with the new show, which will include new characters in place of Anthony Head's Giles and Alyson Hannigan's Willow. It's expected that an African-American actress will be hired for the new Slayer role.

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Authors

Eleanor Bley GriffithsDrama Editor, RadioTimes.com

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