Sarah Michelle Gellar Points Finger at Executive Producer for Buffy Revival’s Axing

On March 14, Sarah Michelle Gellar took to Instagram to announce the cancellation of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: New Sunnydale, a continuation of the beloved Buffy the Vampire Slayer series that was set to be helmed by Hamnet director Chloé Zhao. In a recent interview, Gellar revealed the culprit behind the show’s demise: an unnamed executive who boasted about never having watched the original series.

During her chat with an outlet, Gellar shared that she learned of the cancellation just before attending the premiere of her upcoming film, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come. She recounted, “We had an executive on our show who was not only not a fan of the original, but was proud to constantly remind us that he had never seen the entirety of the series and how it wasn’t for him…So that tells you the uphill battle that we had been fighting since day one, when your executive is literally proud to tell you that he didn’t watch it.”

Interestingly, Gellar’s comments raise questions about who she might be referring to, especially since the list of executive producers for Buffy the Vampire Slayer: New Sunnydale is publicly available, and only one man, Kaz Kuzui, is among the nine credited producers. While it might seem like Kuzui is the target of her remarks, that assumption may not hold up.

Kuzui has a long history with the franchise, having produced the original 1992 Buffy the Vampire Slayer film and served as an executive producer for the entire 1996 TV series. He also attempted to reboot the series as a film in 2009 and as a separate TV series in 2018. It seems unlikely that someone who has worked on five different Buffy projects would harbor any disdain for the original series.

However, reports suggest that Craig Erwich, President of Disney Television Group, could be the real focus of Gellar’s frustration. Sources indicate that Erwich was the executive responsible for the cancellation, as he oversees Hulu Originals. Additionally, some reports claim that Erwich’s decision was influenced more by the quality of the pilot, with concerns about production costs and whether it met the high standards set by the original series.