As most of you know by now, they are doing a remake of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Not the V show, but the movie… actually it’s more like a total reboot of the franchise, and as such it won’t have any of the people involved from the Buffy TV show… including Joss Whedon. Interesting.
Unsurprisingly, one of the cast members from the TV show, Anthony Stewart Head (the guy who played Giles, Buffy’s watcher) is speaking out and saying some not so nice things. The folks at Moviehole give us this:
“I wouldn’t want to see it, no,” Head, best known for his role as Giles on “Buffy”, admits. “The Kuzuis didn’t do a great job on the movie the first time around. It was Joss’ script at the age of 19, but they changed a lot of it. They said, ‘Look, we know best and we know how to make this movie,’ and it became quite schlocky and high camp.”
Head recalls the time when he went to audition for the Buffy series because he loved Whedon’s pilot script so much, and his agent advised him to watch the movie to get the tone of the show before his screen test. “So I did and I went, ‘Oh, that’s not it at all.’ I went in and saw Joss and said, ‘I watched the movie last night!’ And he went, ‘Oh. Did ya?’ I just put it out of my mind. The bottom line is if a movie was ever to be made, it should be made with Joss Whedon, whether it’s a retrospective or not. But it would be madness to do it without him. [The Kazuis] have the rights to because they have the rights to the original movie, but it should be interesting to see. It may be a bit like watching a car wreck.”
Ok, first of all I’m not one of these guys that thinks ONLY Joss Whedon can do Buffy, anymore than I think ONLY Peter Jackson can do The Hobbit or that ONLY Willaim Shatner can play Kirk. I believe EVERYONE in the movie business is replaceable. Not that they SHOULD be replaced… but just because one person does something great, doesn’t mean it’s not possible that someone else could do it just as well or even better.
However in this case, even though I don’t think a Buffy movie MUST have Joss Whedon on board, I also don’t think the Kazius should do it at all. I hated the original Buffy movie and they are the ones behind it. It’s maddness.
So while I disagree with Giles that Whedon MUST do it… I must agree with him that getting these guys to do it is not smart at all. What do you guys think?
