Few shows go on to be as enduring as Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. It’s a show with a complicated legacy, but one that truly defined the television landscape of the time; there has been nothing like it since and likely won’t be again. So it’s no surprise that people continuously tried, and failed, to recapture lightning in a bottle, promising spinoffs and films and revivals in an attempt to recreate what made the original series so special.
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But it seems that none of those plans would shake out, with each proposed new show or movie eventually getting the ax, including a wildly out-of-left-field additional season of Angel, a show that had performed well to date. Below are each of the proposed ideas that might have brought Buffy the Vampire Slayer into a new era.
7) Angel Season 6
For 25 years now, fans have lamented the ‘what if’ potential of a sixth season of Angel. Pretty early on, the creators knew how Season 5 would end and had big plans to move the show forward, taking it in an entirely new direction, unlike anything audiences had seen before. Brought on in Season 4 of Buffy, David Fury was the mind behind what was coming next for Angel. Speaking with Meanwhile…‘s Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Post Mortem all the way back in 2004, Fury said about the continuation of Angel, “The really cool thing about season six, we knew how season five was going to end very early on and we knew what it was going to launch into with season six, which was a post-apocalyptic show [and] which I thought was going to be great. It was going to be Angel in The Road Warrior, which I thought would be awesome. In the ruined city of LA, out in the desert, or something. It was just going to be kind of a really cool, different show.”
6) Buffy: The Animated Series
With both Buffy and Angel launching to new heights, it came as no surprise that books, comics, and graphic novels were introduced into the BtVS ecosystem. And this led Joss Whedon to consider an animated project for the series, one that would take viewers back to its earlier days, when the characters were still slaying their way through high school. It would have a noticeably lighter tone than the later seasons of Buffy, one that the creative brains behind it considered more appropriate for the new medium. But after Fox’s kids division was shuttered in 2002, Whedon and co. were unable to find a network that would air the season, leaving its 13 finished scripts to languish.
5) Ripper
Even fan-favorite Giles couldn’t manage to get his own spinoff off the ground. The series was set to be called Ripper, and it was meant to play out as a classic English series of ghost stories, focusing on the core theme of the main character’s loneliness. Speaking with Buffy the Vampire Magazine in 2001, Whedon said that Giles was “sort of picking up his life all alone, and then getting involved in the underbelly of other people’s lives, and finding out all about them. Loneliness is what I think of. It may not be the theme so much as the emotional intent of the series, but that’s what really attracts it to me the most.” Ripper was originally pitched as a limited series, then pared down to a two-hour movie, then to a 90-minute special that would air on the BBC, before finally being scrapped altogether due to Whedon’s other commitments.
4) Faith the Vampire Slayer
Not much is known about this potential spinoff aside from the fact that it was set to center on fan-favorite antihero Faith, who would be ushered forward as the new Slayer. Speaking with Femme Fatale in 2003, Time Minear, who worked on the original Buffy, said, “The show was basically going to be Faith meets Kung Fu. It would have been Faith, probably on a motorcycle, crossing the earth, trying to find her place in the world. I’m sure it would get an arc at some point, but the idea of her rooted somewhere seemed wrong to me. The idea of her constantly on the move seemed right to me. And she broke out of prison (on Angel), so there would have been some people after her.” But Eliza Dushku, who played Faith, was ready to move on to other projects, choosing to star in the show Tru Calling instead of continuing with Faith the Vampire Slayer.
3) Spike movie
Ah, Spike. You either love him or hate him, but there’s no denying that it was always a blast when he was on screen. Which is likely why an idea was floated for a film that would tell more of his story. And while that movie would never see the light of day, and James Marsters, who played Spike, said in 2011 that he would no longer play the vampire since more than five years had elapsed, making his appearance as an immortal less believable, the idea wasn’t entirely dead in the water. It was later adapted into a comic titled Spike: Into the Light, set between Seasons 5 and 7 of Buffy. At a convention in 2007, actress Amy Acker, who played Winifred “Fred” Burkle in Angel, said, “I think it’s safe to say that’s not happening anymore, cause if they were, they’d be getting done right now. There was supposed to be three of them—one for Spike, a Faith one, and also one for Willow. I think it’s safe to say that now because it’s not going to happen.”
2) 2018 Buffy Reboot
In 2018, Joss Whedon was back with another Buffy script—this time in a bid to fully reboot the series. But concerns about a reboot as opposed to a revival directly contributed to the series never seeing the light of day, alongside questions of whether or not the diversity that the executive producers wanted to highlight would carry the show or crash it where fans of the original were concerned, and as of 2022, it was official that the reboot was put on an indefinite hiatus.
1) 2020s Reboot
This list wouldn’t be complete without the worst reboot news of all. The most recent step into reboot territory would have been directed by Chloe Zhao (Eternals) and was set to bring Sarah Michelle Gellar back as Buffy as she helped guide a new Slayer, who would be played by Ryan Kiera Armstrong. While this new reboot would have nothing to do with Joss Whedon, Hulu had ordered a pilot episode, which it ultimately canceled, ending the series’ continuation. SMG took to Instagram to share the news, saying, “I am really sad to have to share this, but I wanted you all to hear it from me. Unfortunately, Hulu has decided not to move forward with Buffy New Sunnydale. I want to thank Chloé Zhao because I never thought I would find myself back in Buffy’s stylish, yet affordable boots, and thanks to Chloe, I was reminded how much I love her and how much she means not only to me, but to all of you. And this doesn’t change any of that.” She signed off with one of Buffy’s most famous lines: “I promise, if the apocalypse actually comes, you could still beep me.”
Which of these potential Buffy projects would you have been most excited to see? Let us know in the comments, and don’t forget to check out the ComicBook forum to keep the conversation going with other Buffy fans.
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Image Courtesy of Prime Video & Dark Horse Comics -
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