Buffy the Vampire Slayer Revival Gets Update From Dolly Parton (Yes, That Dolly Parton)

Country music legend and pop culture icon Dolly Parton says there are still people working behind the scenes to bring back Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Parton, who served as a producer on the original series, had no real details to share in a new interview, but confirmed that work is still happening on a new show, which will presumably happen without Sarah Michelle Gellar. TV’s original Buffy has said in the past that she doesn’t think they need to revisit the world with her, but that she supports something new.

Based on the 1992 movie from writer/director Joss Whedon, Buffy the Vampire Slayer ran for seven seasons from 1997 until 2003. It was one of the most well-regarded and influential teen series of all time, and its reputation has managed to endure — something that isn’t easy to do when you’re a modestly-budgeted genre show.

“They’re still working on that,” Parton told Business Insider last week. “They’re thinking about bringing it back and revamping it.”

The fact that Parton produced the series is a fun bit of trivia, but it’s rare that she’s the one serving as any kind of spokesperson for the project. As noted by Deadline, many fans had no idea the singer was involved with the show at all until February of last year, when Gellar talked about it on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon.

“Yes, little known fact, the legend Dolly Parton was a producer,” Gellar said during an interview on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon from Feb. 2023. “We never saw her [but] we’d get Christmas gifts in the beginning that would have our name, and I would think, ‘She doesn’t even know who I am.’ And then one day, someone asked her about it, and she complimented the show and my performance. I was like, ‘Oh, I can die now. Dolly Parton knows who I am and thinks I’m good.’”

Buffy has been off the air for 20 years, but it has never really been gone. It was one of the first TV shows to have a huge second life on home video — as DVD started to take over the market, full seasons of TV started to be available for purchase for the first time in a big way. There have also been comic book tie-ins more or less nonstop for years now, and talk about reviving or rebooting the show started basically as soon as it was over.