Why Hulu Canceled Sarah Michelle Gellar's Buffy Reboot

It looks like we won't be returning to Sunnydale anytime soon. Hulu has canceled its planned "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" sequel series after its pilot was rejected, leaving the project's future up in the air. For now, though, it appears that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: New Sunnydale" is dead (as the show was tentatively titled). But what led to Hulu putting a stake through the pilot's heart to begin with?

According to Deadline, things seemed to be going smoothly at first. The "New Sunnydale" TV show pilot was ordered by Hulu back in 2025, with Oscar-winning filmmaker Chloé Zhao ("Nomadland," "Hamnet") directing it from a script by Nora and Lilla Zuckerman (who previously worked on shows like "Fringe," "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.," and "Poker Face"). Meanwhile, Sarah Michelle Gellar reprised her beloved role as Buffy Summers for the project, with Ryan Kiera Armstrong ("Star Wars: Skeleton Crew") starring as a young new slayer.

Now, are you ready to be really confused? 

Deadline's sources claimed that Hulu executives thought the finished pilot "played too young," with some apparently feeling it was too small-scale to boot. Why weren't these concerns raised earlier? That, it seems, is unclear, particularly since the plan was supposedly to remain faithful to the modest network scope of the original "Buffy" TV series. Be that as it may, the Zuckermans did a rewrite in response to these concerns. Per Deadline:

I hear the new script was 90 minutes. It was more adult, featuring a lot more of Gellar's Buffy, and was described as a [sic] more of a streaming show than a network one.

So, why cancel "New Sunnydale" altogether? Well, apparently, a key figurehead — Disney Television Group President Craig Erwich, per Deadline's sources — might have killed its chances of coming to fruition.

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is widely regarded as one of the best horror TV shows of all time, but that wasn't enough to sell one Disney executive on the sequel series. Speaking to People, Sarah Michelle Gellar revealed that the news about the project's cancellation took everyone involved in making it by surprise, but maybe it shouldn't have come as such a shock. In her own words:

"We had an executive on our show who was not only not a fan of the original, but was proud to constantly remind us that he had never seen the entirety of the series and how it wasn't for him. [...] So, that tells you the uphill battle that we had been fighting since day one, when your executive is literally proud to tell you that he didn't watch it."

Again, Deadline's sources reported that Gellar was referring specifically to Craig Erwich when she spoke to People. Moreover, those same sources alleged that Erwich made the final call not to move forward with the "New Sunnydale" pilot, though his reasoning is unclear — with the revised pilot script being "too expensive to shoot" and the script still failing to clear the desired bar for quality both being cited as possible explanations.

Still, despite the cancellation, Disney — the corporation that ultimately owns the "Buffy" property — is reportedly still open to moving forward with the project in some capacity. What's more, it's believed that Hulu is interested in returning to the drawing board, though it remains to be seen if Gellar will be involved in any future incarnations, should they even materialize.

In the meantime, you can always revisit the best episodes of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."