Former ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ Showrunner Changed Her Opinion on Show’s Reboot

Buffy the Vampire Slayer executive producer and season 6 showrunner Marti Noxon has reversed course on her feelings towards the in-the-works reboot.

“I’ll be honest, initially I was like, ‘Nooo! Don’t touch the sacred text!’ But the more I learned about it, the more excited I got,” Noxon told TheWrap.

Original series creator Joss Whedon serves as executive producer on the project, which will see a black actress assume the role formerly filled by Sarah Michelle Gellar. Monica Owusu-Breen (Alias, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) has been tapped as showrunner.

The project has drawn mixed reactions on social media since its unveiling last month, but Noxon believes the re-imagining is “a great concept.”

“I’m excited that there is a female showrunner and that she’s a woman of color writing about a woman of color,” Noxon said. “So I’m actually really pumped for it.” Noxon is “kind of busy” with her own projects — the Amy Adams-led Sharp Objects for HBO, the just-launched Dietland on AMC — but is confident the Buffy revival is in good hands.

“So if they ask — I don’t know what I’d say,” Noxon said. “It depends on what I was doing. But I think they’ve got it covered [laughs].”

Shortly after announcing the project, Owusu-Breen said the fan-favorite supernatural horror series is her Star Wars, explaining there “is only one Buffy” but adding “it could be time to meet a new Slayer.”

“Before I became a writer, I was a fan. For seven seasons, I watched Buffy Summers grow up, find love, kill that love. I watched her fight, and struggle and slay. There is only one Buffy. One Xander, one Willow, Giles, Cordelia, Oz, Tara, Kendra, Faith, Spike, Angel… They can’t be replaced,” she wrote in a July 26 tweet.

“Joss Whedon’s brilliant and beautiful series can’t be replicated. I wouldn’t try to. But here we are, 20 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.”

Original Buffy star Alyson Hannigan, who played Willow Rosenberg, recently told E! News as long as Whedon is involved, “it will be good, I’m sure.”

While Hannigan said the original still holds up — “Honestly, they should just put reruns on primetime,” she said — she expressed hopes the new reincarnation is “as good as ours was.”