back to article Buffy to slay her way back into cinemas

Fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer should brace themselves for a cinematic "re-imagining" of the cult character, which producer Charles Roven describes as a "a completely new reboot". sarah michelle gellar as buffy 'Re-imagine this, mate.' Roven's Atlas Entertainment is working with writer Whit Anderson, whose take on Buffy …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No Whedon,

    Cheap cash in on twilight market, no ties whatsover with TV series characters, writer with no discernable history.

    And for that reason, I'm out.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Twilight had a tv series?

      Joking. But yeah I see your drift. Remember though that there are other movies that have faced similar "re-imaginings" that have turned out to impress even hard-core fans.. so this would be worth keeping an eye on I think

      1. The BigYin

        @AC

        Twilight TV Series - it's called "Vampire Diaries". Not done by the same people or set in the same universe, but almost as schmaltzy.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @@AC

          Ehhhh... maybe... read the books (I read everything my daughter wants to read before she's allowed outside her age category - rule of the house). Yes, I struggled to hold the bile down and true it didn't strike me as too far from the idea at all; was definitely more cheesy though

    2. Tzael

      Re: No Whedon

      The lack of Whedon and lack of ties to his TV series got me interested. I can understand why the TV series appealed to gurly girls, think most people can! Of course the TV series also appealed to adolescent boys, but for completely different reasons!

      I think the original film version is fine, no need to reimagine it. Hollywood can't be bothered coming up with lots of new stuff and so it takes an existing concept and sticks a new dress on it (quite literally this time).

      1. thecakeis(not)alie

        Buffy for guys.

        It was called "Angel."

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        This former twenty something bloke ...

        ... liked the dialogue and the jokes. Both of which were distinctly lacking from the original film.

        There's more to life than boobs.

    3. Ken 16 Silver badge
      Paris Hilton

      I'd love to see a Twilight/Buffy crossover

      New girl moves to school, meets boy, stakes him and his entire family - the end.

      Paris, why wasn't she cast?

  2. SlackerUK
    FAIL

    Travesty!!

    The 1992 original is a classic and the follow on series was brilliant - all down to the writing of Josh Whedon. I suspect this rehash will be lacking the humour, creativity and cast that its predecessors had. No description is needed other then FAIL!

    1. Daniel B.

      Original movie

      I actually found the Buffy series to be the 1992 movie taken seriously when it first came out. The movie came out as campy & fun, the series was less campy, still fun but also kinda serious.

      However, this new movie doesn't seem to be even in the TV series mood. I fear that the new Buffy movie will be made with Sparkle Motion...

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The final death scene from the movie is a classic.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCOzKufIIzs

  4. The BigYin
    FAIL

    Drive a stake through its heart

    No, really. Do it. It was fun in its day, but the franchise is dead. It is an ex-franchise. It is no more. Kaput. Left the mortal plane. Etc.

    And no Joss Whedon? WTF? Oh, wait, this is Hollywood. Fuck the content creators and the talent, the studios want their pound of flesh. Pay-up, bitches.

  5. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Stop

    NO! NO! NO!

    're-imagining'

    NO! NO! NO!

    Please stop using that awful, awful phrase!

    1. The BigYin

      OK

      How about "reboot the franchise"?

      1. Chika
        Alert

        OK OK

        Or how about just "we ran out of new ideas so let's stuff something out that has been successful in the past, even though it reached a logical conclusion, in the hope that we can con the fans out of their hard-earned cash"? Probably nearer to the truth.

        Inventing new phrases to cover up plagiarism on the part of unimaginative bean-counters that run our media doesn't really make a lot of difference.

  6. Chris Leeson

    Don't tell me...

    ... Let me guess:

    "take the touchstones of the Whedon world but frame them in 'a new story' that is very much of the moment"

    means:

    "Sparkly Vampires!!!"

  7. James O'Shea

    stake it

    I will not be watching it.

  8. Anonymous John

    Title role.

    Can I be the first to suggest Lindsay Lohan? I read somewhere that she's available.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      OR..

      Hayden Panettiere...?

  9. Burch
    FAIL

    No Joss Whedon?

    I'm out.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    hard choices

    either go with the Whedon-less reboot or stick with Whedon-ful Season 8 comics

    1. seanj
      Thumb Up

      hard choices?

      Season 8, thanks.

      Hmm, wasn't that hard a choice after all...

  11. CaptainHook
    Flame

    Modern Retake

    "take the touchstones of the Whedon world but frame them in 'a new story' that is very much of the moment".

    The vampires which normally suck the live blood of humans are actually bankers who just wont die until you give them a good staking. Unfortunately these bankers are more durable than vampires because unlike vamps who go "poof" in the first hint of sunlight, the bankers can take a full dose of brilliant exposure in the media spot light and come back stronger.

    Burn em, burn em with fire.

    1. The BigYin

      I misread that as

      "Bum em, bum em with fire."

      Gave me quite a different mental image I can tell you!

  12. Peter Clarke 1
    FAIL

    No further comment

    Joss Whedon has said it all

  13. Greg J Preece

    Oh thank Christ!

    I knew that with the slew of teenage vampire crap going around at the minute, something would get remade, and I'd much rather it was Buffy than Blade.

    But you know it's going to be terrible. This paragraph says it all:

    >>Fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer should brace themselves for a

    >>cinematic "re-imagining" of the cult character, which producer

    >>Charles Roven describes as a "a completely new reboot".

    Oh wow, just wow. You *know* that's going to be awful. Star Trek XI awful.

  14. tony72
    Thumb Up

    Give it a chance

    OK, it will probably be crap, especially without Whedon. But occasional, these "re-imaginings" and "reboots" come up trumps. Witness Battlestar Galactica, which was great, and J.J. Abrams Star Trek, which I was surprisingly not complete rubbish. I don't hold out too much hope for this, especially as it will be hard for a one-off movie to satisfy fans of the series' long story-arcs, so it will probably just end up being a fairly generic Buffy-themed action flick. But it's still possible that it won't suck, fingers crossed.

    1. Greg J Preece

      Typo

      "J.J. Abrams Star Trek, which I was surprisingly not complete rubbish"

      The stray "I" aside, you seem to have accidentally inserted the word "not" into that sentence.

      1. spp
        Grenade

        Not typo, just word order

        I don't think there's a "not" inserted in that sentence, just perhaps inserted in the wrong place.

        "J.J. Abrams Star Trek, which was not surprisingly complete rubbish."

      2. Shonko Kid
        FAIL

        Buffy the Reboot Slayer

        I think it's just the 'not' should be before 'surprisingly'

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Considering the work on Batman Begins

    Lets be honest. Buffy the movie was one of THE defining movies of the cult horror comedy genre. The TV series of Buffy, which spawned Angel for older audiences; but retained the basic thread of the original film was extremely well written and planned. No two ways about it.

    But then I consider Batman Begins, and The Dark Knight and compare it with the original cult movies of the 90's and also with the campy daytime shows from the 60's. It eventually got so camp that even the most hard-core fans seemed to dwindle in the last two releases - at least, that's the indication from the box office.

    I think this is worth a look. Given the revitalization that the Batman franchise has enjoyed, I would expect similar results.

    So for what it's worth, I will be watching with careful optimism.

  16. Peter Storm
    FAIL

    *sigh*

    Ffs! Every other TV show or film these days seems to be about fecking vampires or zombies.

    Don't these assholes have any imagination? I suppose they're all trying to jump on the gravy train before it leaves the station.

  17. John 62

    producer of batman begins?

    I've had enough of reboots! Yes, I enjoyed A-Team, Star Trek, Casino Royale and Batman Begins as movies in their own right and I even enjoyed much of Enterprise, but a re-imagining means they're going to mess with the timelines and I don't like that. Star Trek might as well have been a completely different franchise.

    I understand most plots are all rehashes of the ancient Greek theatre anyway and I don't mind that too much, but give us some new characters at least! Yes geeks enjoy arguing over timelines and plot holes and retcons and flip-flops. Is it good for our sanity and wider social skills? No.

    Then again I have horrible double standards. Every Mario game is a re-imagining of Bowser kidnapping Peach and I have nothing but love for Shigeru Miyamoto.

  18. Lottie
    Pirate

    Hmmm

    It seems we're fully in the age of the reboot. I'm sick and tired of "creativity" meaning "able to dust off a film/ series from 15 years ago and remake it... badly"

    The original Buffy film was as hilarious as it was poor as it was amazing. Pure schlock B movie goodness!

    The series had some real snoozefest seasons, but in general wasn't too bad.

    There was, however a common factor. Decent writing from Whedon. I mean, imagine if they made a terminator film without Cameron... Oh... yeah.

    Still, it could be worse I guess. They could be re imagining Firefly.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      "They could be re imagining Firefly."

      NO! Don't give them that idea!

      Christ, can you imagine if they did to Firefly what they did to James Bond and Batman? A gravelly-voiced Mal wouldn't be able to Bwah! properly. A more tank-like Jayne wouldn't do any better- and wouldn't have been as easy to make a statue of.

      And then they'd make Inara look like a total tramp, Zoe into GI Jane and Kayleigh... well, she had that whole hot-female-engineer thing going for her. That'd be gone.

      Simon and River are, of course, terrorists according to the dominant regime in the series. So they'd be played by middle-eastern looking people.

      Even worse, the Reavers would be sparkly.

      1. mego

        James Bond..

        Yes I was disappointed too but then when you sit down and gnash your way through it; the new concept actually makes sense in a new post-cold-war scenario.

        As for Batman.. the Box Office would disagree with you. Even the 1989 movie was a re imagining of the series; which pulled incredible revenue in. The 2005 re-imagining has almost made as much in 5 years as the 1989 product made over it's entire life. Opening weekend of the 1989 movie saw only a 16% gross while the 2005 re-imagining saw over 23%. Not bad for a failure..

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          re: 1989 Batman was re imagining

          I'm pretty sure it was based on the comics and had nothing to do with the camp TV crap.

  19. Christy A
    Thumb Down

    No, the fans are NOT awaiting this.

    BOO. No. Stop, right now. This does NOT need a reboot, reimagining, revival, or any other thing that they call an old idea when they can't be bothered to think up their own.

    If they want me to go to see Buffy at the cinema, it had better be Sarah Michelle Gellar. This applies until she's either A) Deceased or B) Way too old for it. Neither of these are the case, so they can just forget it.

    1. Atonnis
      Stop

      Hang on!

      Don't you mean Kristy Swanson? She's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Sarah Michelle Gellar was the TV series actress that fed off of that movie.

      If you're going for originals, keep it right.

      Anyway, I enjoyed the TV series, but I could rarely ever state the SMG was any driving force of humour. That really was down to the other characters.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Well said...!

        "I could rarely ever state the SMG was any driving force of humour. That really was down to the other characters".

        I concur. Spike was fucking hilarious.

      2. 100113.1537

        Young Buffy - old Angel..

        .. was pretty funny (I still laugh at putting your finger in the duck/dyke scene), but once Buffy was older that didn't work and the humour came from the other characters.

        Oh God, I sound like such a nerd.....

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    This would be a good time to bring back Firefly!

    15 episodes and a movie just ain't enough.

    1. John 62

      dunno bout that

      The political dynamics of the Alliance have changed since the signal got out. Everything would be different. You could either get the awesomeness of TNG or it could be like moving Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley to ITV in the morning.

      You want something brought back? How about the 2nd wave of the Chig War in Space: Above and Beyond. After the peace talks broke down.

  21. Cunningly Linguistic
    FAIL

    It's official

    Hollywood is out of new ideas.

  22. Robert Heffernan

    Oh Noes

    'She assured the LA Times, though, that she'd "take the touchstones of the Whedon world but frame them in 'a new story' that is very much of the moment".'

    Great, so Buffy is going to be a pale, moody emo, fending off vampires and werewolves trying to hump her instead of stabbing them in the heart. No thanks, i'll stick with the Wheydon/SMG formula thanks.

  23. Alan Edwards
    Thumb Up

    Casting

    If they go back to the beginning, both Lindsay Lohan and Hayden Panettiere are probably too old. Buffy was in high school in the film and when the series started - not the last year either - which would make her about 15.

    Taylor Momsen - (not so) Little Jenny in Gossip Girl - is about the right age. Or how about Chloe Moretz?

    I don't hold out much hope without Joss Whedon's involvement, but I'll give it a watch.

  24. Stef 4
    Thumb Up

    That time again...

    ... I love the announcements for sequels/remakes/reboots.

    Suddenly everyone forgets that we still have the originals. Everyone behaves as if the makers are going to come to our houses and force us at gunpoint to watch the new material and burn all the copies of the originals.

    So what if they are "re-imagining" Buffy? In what way does it affect the greatness that was Seasons 2-7 (Season 1 was dross, come on, admit it).

    As for "Hollywood running out of ideas". Seriously? Everything has been done. Bruce Willis has been playing the same character for decade, regardless of if he is called John McClain or Joe Hollenback. Die Hard 2 started out as a script, they changed the name of the main character, and made it into a sequel. It would have been the same film if Bruce's character was called "Don McShane" and the film called "Airport of Doom". The vast majority of actors are typecast for the very simple reason that this is what the paying customer likes to see.

    So what if they make a new version of Buffy? None of you seemed to mind when they rebooted the original film as a TV show staring SMG.

    Half the shows and films you all watch are based on books, comics, foreign shows/films, and you just didn't even know it, yet are happy to say "OMG!!!! Teh Holllywoodz failz lolz." or something.

    I'm a die-hard Trek fan, I even watched Enterprise. I also loved the most recent Trek film. Somehow people seem to forget how truly awful many of the original shows were. And how bad Trek 5 was, let alone Nemesis. In what way does the new Trek film affect what has come before? Does its BluRay release somehow "infect the INTERNET" like a crappy SyFy channel film, and erase every piece of existing Trek material? Does it then delete our memories of Shatner's Kirk and Kelley's McCoy baiting Nimoy's Spock? Star Trek was originally a re-imagining of Wagon Train as pitched by Gene "Wagon Train In SPACE!!!" Roddenbury. Star Wars is just a re-imagining of the Hidden Fortress and Flash Gordon. I'm sure the original Buffy film was just a re-imagining of Van Helsing stories.

    Stargate Universe? Its just "Space 1999" or Star Trek Voyager.

    Day of the Dead, and any other Zombie film? it's just a re-imagining of Day of the Triffids. Erm, sort of. Well, 28 Days Later certainly was.

    What does it matter that they are making a new Buffy? At the very least it will re-spark interest in the original. Look how well DVD sales of the original Battlestar Galactica did when the new version came out.

    Personally, I cannot wait for the new versions of Streethawk, Automan, and of course, the one we have all been waiting for, The Whiz Kids. Imagine, and bunch of high school computer geeks solving crimes while pregnant, hooked on crystal meth, being abused by drunken same-sex parents, and probably aided by their loveable alien friend ALF (if I have any measure of Hollywood script writers).

    All we need now is a remake of Cheers with "R-Patts" as Sam, and we're sorted.

    1. John 62

      wagon train IN SPACE

      I just watched the first pilot on www.watchtrek.com. Yes, Roddenberry pitched it as Wagon Train in space, but he said that when he started writing it that it became something completely different. True, they had to do another pilot to make it more like Wagon Train so that the networks would accept it, but that first pilot wasn't a space western.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Megaphone

      Ork

      I want Mork and Mindy back!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Stop

        Oh no you don't

        Mork and Mindy? Someone arrest this man now!

        Personally, I want Dark Skies and the 4/5 years worth of it that lead up to the alien invasion at the turn of the millenium. Yes, the last one.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Stef

      There's only 17 story plots that have ever been conceived. These expand to something like 35 when you get a few mix-plot attempts thrown in..

  25. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "a completely new reboot"

    If a reboot is supposed to renew the series, what exactly is a "completely new" reboot ?

    Is it possible to make a totally old reboot ?

    For that matter, is it possible for Hollywood execs to stop taking us for morons ?

    I guess not.

    1. Lottie

      kinda

      You can sort of have an old reboot. If you look at Diary of the Dead, it was a reboot in that it was, both up to date and yet concurrent with Night of the Living Dead. So while it WAS a reboot in one sense, it also wasn't new.

      A completly new reboot is, oh I dunno, like taking The Mask and removing everything that made the comics hilarious and replacing them with Jim Carey and his gurning.

      "For that matter, is it possible for Hollywood execs to stop taking us for morons ?"

      The Lost Boys 3...

  26. A. Lewis
    FAIL

    No, no no.

    Buffy without Whedon is just wrong.

    And come on Hollywood, there's loads of stories out there. Make something we haven't seen before! Maybe that will draw crowds to the cinema instead of trying to pour crap 3D and remakes down our throats.

  27. Blofeld's Cat
    Stop

    Re-imagining

    You can sum up all that is wrong with "re-imagining" in one word...

    "Daleks"

  28. Rogerborg

    Maybe they'll reboot the reboot

    Change the 20-something cast for 10-somethings half way through, flick the lightswitch, switch from orchestral to synth, or vice versa.

    It's not like Yoof have the attention span to sit through a whole movie anyway.

  29. Tigra 07
    Thumb Up

    Finally!

    They had better use Sarah Michelle Gellar =]

    She was perfect

  30. mafoo
    Unhappy

    "...'a new story' that is very much of the moment"

    Buffy saves us from credit crunch vampires, justin beaver zombies and lady gaga werewolves.

  31. Talis
    FAIL

    “There is an active fan base eagerly awaiting this character’s return."

    Yes and said active fanbase is actively eager to disembowel the morons who came up with this idea.

  32. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    This is going to be an utter disaster

    And I refuse to give it a chance. Joss Whedon is not involved, and a woman is writing. No, sorry, no. Stake it now.

  33. FozzyBear

    Title, Title, Title

    I have to admit being one of those fans baying for blood on hearing about the star trek reboot, and was quite surprised by the movie. That aside this just sounds so wrong. Wrong i tell you.

  34. mcav
    FAIL

    Another movie I won't be watching

    This and uncharted have, to me at least, failed before they film a single scene.

    No Whedon, no original TV cast, no watch.

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