Hulu’s new Buffy The Vampire Slayer pilot has officially wrapped, and while Sarah Michelle Gellar admits “there is very little I can share” about it, she did tease a bit about the ethos of the revival. “Fandoms like Buffy still resonate today — because it’s not just about the show, but about the community that’s grown around it,” Gellar says in a new interview with IGN. “For me, the heart of Buffy was always about found family—that sense of belonging and being loved for who you are—and that’s more important now than ever. That’s what makes this new chapter so meaningful, it’s not just revisiting the past but honoring the show’s original DNA. The fact that people still carry such love for the show after all these years is incredibly special.”
Fandom, of course, is what animated the Buffy revival in the first place. Oscar winner Chloé Zhao, a longtime fan of the show, is the one who brought the idea to Buffy executive producer Gail Berman, who looped Gellar into the idea. Following allegations of workplace misconduct against the original series creator Joss Whedon, Gellar said she “didn’t see a way for the show to exist again.” However, she agreed to a meeting “mainly just to meet Chloé,” the actor explained in a previous social media post. The meeting blossomed into a partnership (which now also includes showrunners Nora and Lilla Zuckerman), and brought us to today, with Zhao directing the first episode.
“I just wrapped the pilot on the new Buffy the Vampire Slayer series, which is set 25 years later. My company is part of developing it,” Zhao explained in a recent interview with The Los Angeles Times. “The fandom is so special to me and I’m excited about how that’s going to go into the world.” Gellar (who is reprising her most famous role in addition to serving as an EP) posted a few behind the scenes photos from the shoot to Instagram, including herself and Zhao posing with stakes. The final slide includes Zhao’s note from the first day of filming, which begins with the famous Buffy Summers quote, “The hardest thing to do in this world is live in it. Be brave. Live.” The filmmaker added, “Let’s embark on this adventure together with joy, empathy, curiosity and respect. Life is both beautiful and difficult. We will be rewarded and tested. We will be brave. We will live to the fullest and no we are never alone. We always have each other.”
