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Joss Whedon is developing a ‘richly diverse’ Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot

Joss Whedon is developing a ‘richly diverse’ Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot

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The new show will be taken out to cable networks and streaming services later this summer

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Joss Whedon’s TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended its original run back in 2003, but 15 years later, a new iteration of the show is in development. Deadline reports that Whedon and Midnight, Texas creator Monica Owusu-Breen are developing the series at Fox 21 TV Studios. There is no home yet for the new Buffy, but the plan is for the series to be pitched to cable networks and streaming services later this summer.

The original show followed Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), a “Slayer” destined to fight evil forces in her new hometown of Sunnydale. Inspired by Whedon’s feature film of the same name, the series ran for seven seasons, inspiring a spin-off series (Angel), a larger expanded universe of comics and novels, and a fanbase that has remained devoted to the show years after it came to an end.

The new show will be set in the present day, building on the mythology already established in the original series. And while Whedon is co-developing the new iteration, Owusu-Breen will be serving as writer and showrunner. According to Deadline, the plan is for the new Buffy to feature an African-American woman as the new lead vampire hunter. “Like our world, it will be richly diverse,” the producers said in a statement, “and like the original, some aspects of the series could be seen as metaphors for issues facing us all today.”

Owusu-Breen and Whedon previously worked together on Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, but the new showrunner has a long history in television that seem to make her a perfect fit for an updated version of Buffy. She’s written on shows like Charmed, Alias, Lost, and Fringe, all of which dealt with strong female leads, supernatural forces, or both.