As we previously reported, Hulu has canceled its reboot of the classic TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, titled Buffy New Sunnydale. But now a leaked pilot script has confirmed many of the major problems that likely led to this decision. TLDR? It’s woke.
The script came from writers Nora and Lilla Zuckerman, not original creator Joss Whedon, and the dialogue is flatter than Eliott Page’s scarred chest. The characters one-dimensional. It lacked the sharp wit fans loved from the 1990s show. Mild swearing, which felt out of place for the franchise, was everywhere. Buzzwords like feminism and solidarity kept inorganically popping up, including one line where a character says another is trying to weaponize her feminism against her. And of course, preferred pronouns abounded.
Is this a joke? Must have been written by a leftard.
— Momentum . (@MomentumVixeres) March 17, 2026
What really upset the die hard fans was how the new characters took center stage, with a new Slayer named Nova as the lead. Buffy Summers shows up only at the end for a brief cameo, having been sidelined to working a dull office job under the name Ann and retired from slaying. The old Buffy was treated as a myth, with doubts about vampires even existing. Fans wouldn’t have liked waiting a full episode for so little of the titular hero. Showrunner Chloe Zhao, known for slow dramas like Nomadland, could have never matched Joss Whedon’s style of campy horror, action, and humor.
The reboot planned to jump 25 years ahead. An older Buffy would mentor new Slayers against fresh vampire threats in a rebuilt Sunnydale. But the original ended with the town sunk into a Hellmouth crater and thousands of Slayers activated worldwide. This felt like a forced repeat of the old premise, not a smart update. This setup echoed tired tropes from so many other recent legacy reboots. Think Captain Picard as a lost admiral in Star Trek: Picard or Luke Skywalker hiding as a hermit in recent Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Buffy in a corporate rut felt lazy, tired, and cliched.
Hulu has decided to not move forward for the Buffy The Vampire Slayer revival series, Sarah Michelle Gellar confirms.
A pilot for the series was shot in 2025. pic.twitter.com/dvYgEJnx2B
— The Disney Beat (@DisneyBeat101) March 14, 2026
Sarah Michelle Gellar, who played Buffy in the original run, confirmed the cancellation on Instagram. She thanked director Chloe Zhao but later blamed one executive, claiming that person bragged about never watching the full original series and said it was “not for him,” but many are starting to doubt this story. It came out right after the script leak, when backlash grew over the bad writing. Hulu greenlit and filmed this pilot months earlier, so one unimpressed executive killing it sounds like an excuse.
Buffy was perfect as was. Why reboot it for stupid people?
— Byl Holte (@SirBylHolte) March 17, 2026
Pilots serve as tests. Studios reject pilots quite often if they don’t resonate. Disney, which owns Hulu, has also been pulling back from some of their DEI efforts lately. It’s very likely they skipped on this to avoid another weak project that would most likely only alienate the core fans. It’s clear to me that woke elements in the script killed this Buffy reboot in the crib, and fans should count their blessings and hope they leave the original alone and let it stand as a product of its time.
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