Is nothing sacred? As Warner announces its intention to bring Buffy to cinemas in a new movie, Emma explains why the vampire slayer should be left well alone…
So, as you’ve probably heard, the besuited types at Warner Brothers have decided, in their infinite wisdom, that it’s time to bring Buffy The Vampire Slayer back to the big screen. At first glance, this is a bloody fantastic idea. Let’s get Joss Whedon, the Buffster, and the Scoobs back where they belong, in a big-budget, feature-length reunion, and give Buffy fans one last visit with Sunnydale’s finest.
Sadly, this appears to be the farthest thing from Warner Brothers’ mind. In fact, what the studio announced, rather quietly earlier this week, was a “reimagining” of the original Buffy movie, in all its Luke Perry sized glory.
No, you haven’t lost your mind, that does say the original Buffy movie. Yes, WB has in fact bought the rights to the Kazui-produced camp fest that was the ’92 incarnation of the Buffy story. A movie so disappointing that even its creator decided to remake it when Fox came calling, giving birth to one of the most successful and influential shows of the last couple of decades.
Clearly, with vampires so on-trend right now, Warner Brothers is desperate to get a slice of the sparkly Twilight pie, and faced with a dearth of options, like trying to find an idea of its own, has decided to cannibalise an already successful franchise.
Problem is, though, that owning the rights to the movie and not the show means that the Scoobies, Angel, Giles, Spike et al will not be present – those characters are owned by Fox – leaving Warner with only the Buffy character and the general slayer storyline to play with.
This is definitely not a project put together with fans of the TV show in mind. Rather, this is a movie aimed at an audience who has little or no idea about the show, enabling the studio to make it as Twilight-like as they please. Warner was also quick to point out that none of the action will take place anywhere a high school. But while they may not be touching the show, they do seem to be placing the storyline as near to it (or True Blood) as possible.
What’s going on here appears to be purely economically driven, even if it is two years behind the curve. With the Twilight box office in the hundreds of millions, there isn’t a studio exec on the planet that doesn’t want a piece of that. But with the release of the final Twilight movie, however, the golden touch that is forbidden vamp/human love will become the kiss of death.
For reasons yet to be explained, the Twilight franchise is a phenomenon, but lightning doesn’t strike twice. Just because much of Twilight (and True Blood, if we’re being honest) was culled from the Buffy stories, it doesn’t mean that putting those stories on the screen will have the same effect, something Warner has clearly not taken into account.
Jumping on bandwagons isn’t a good idea at the best of times, but jumping on a rickety bandwagon with an idea that’s already been reimagined as both an incredibly successful TV show and a comic has got to be commercial suicide.
Add to this the criminal lack of any Joss Whedon involvement, (or any of the BTVS writers for that matter), a script written by newbie Whit Anderson, production by the team that brought us the remakes of Get Smart and Scooby Doo, and a rather frightening picture starts to emerge.
From a story point of view, it’s easy to see why studios are keen to keep the Buffy franchise alive – she’s a strong female character, with lots of scope for empowerment stories. She generally kicks ass and there’s a limitless supply of supernatural types for her to go up against.
She’s a fantastic creation, and can pretty much appeal to any age. All of which would be fine if the drive behind the reboot was that the time was right for a new slayer, or if there was a dearth of vamp-on-human love at the cinema. Make any movie purely from a desire to cash in and what you’re generally left with is The A-Team.
One of the reasons Buffy worked so well as a TV show was the luxury of time. Whedon and his team were able to take the Scoobs and turn them from generically nerdy teens into a believable group of friends who were funny, sharp, smart, and occasionally saved the world. What can the new movie say in two hours that hasn’t already been said in hundreds of hours of TV?
That’s the biggest problem with the proposed storyline. Buffy already left school, struggled as a young adult, juggled working and slaying, had bizarre relationships, raised a younger sister on her own... There really isn’t anything she hasn’t done, so where can Anderson take Buffy that Joss didn’t?
The lack of Whedon involvement, and character/cast issues aside, perhaps what’s most worrying here is the utter lack of originality coming out of Hollywood at the moment, as well as the reticence to go out and find some new ideas. Need a vampire movie? Why not use a watered down version of a franchise that’s available on DVD, and still in syndication across America? It appears, not for the first time, that the movie industry is now officially out of ideas.
As if any more proof were needed that Hollywood is dying, here’s the death rattle: they’re going to remake The Wizard of Oz.
And you thought the Buffy movie was blasphemy...
Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here.