Tag Archives: Angel

by Chris Eaton-

Seems Joss Whedon cant catch a goddamn break sometimes.  Sure, he had a hit tv show(s) in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Angel, but the man’s seen a fair amount of his work fucked royally in the ass with out any lube.

First was his original screenplay to BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, which was a soso hit, had little to no involvement from Whedon himself.  The movie apparently bared little to the effect that he was aiming for.  Then, riding off the success of the TV series and its spin off, Joss aimed FIREFLY to the heavens!  Well, much like Icarus, it’s wings got melted by the the spy glass of the bastards at FOX TELEVISION.  Before that, Fox screwed the pooch on his script for ALIEN RESURRECTION, TITAN AE was a dud, and the high DVD sale of FIREFLY apparently wasn’t enough support for Universal to give its film spin off SERENITY a proper release after 25.00 test screenings of all positive reviews.  That film was later dumped in the dead waters of mid September, and has yet to make back its full investment.

Now comes another harsh pill for Whedon to swallow. It turns out, he doesn’t own the rights to BUFFY, or at least the movie. according to the Hollywood Reporter, the original producers,  Fran Rubel Kuzui and  Kaz Kuzui are looking to “RELAUNCH” Buffy as a new franchise, with OUT Whedons involvement.  At least at this time.

The idea is to start a new continuity much like JJ Abrams STAR TREK, and move on from here.  The hope is that it could possibly be just as successful.

This is troubling as the Kuzui’s produced the TV series too, yet cant be bothered to allow the guy that made them some cash to come back?

Now, there are two problems with this.

1) If Whedon isn’t allowed involvement in this new “RELAUNCH”, its almost a dead on guarantee, and this isn’t just fanboy speculation, that the LARGE fan base that Buffy has built is going to universally reject it.   Much like many of the core TREK FANS have kinda turned on the new Trek… which brings me to.

2) The Trek Reboot had a reported budget of over $150 million dollars, did a good opening, and has dropped almost by half each week.  Showing that while there was upfront interest, the draw power is diminishing. This Trek film was aimed to give the series some new life, and bring in NON fans.  It kinda worked, as the film got a ton of positive reviews, but its drops weekly show that while a fun movie, people quickly moved on to the next big thing.

I fully doubt that a BUFFY reboot will have that same pull. Whats also disturbing is it also appears that this is just going to ride the wave of TWILIGHT insanity that has sprung up, along with about 7 other VAMPIRE themed movies set to come out over the next 2 years along with the yearly TWILIGHT sequels.  Those films will most undoubtedly see a steep drop from film to film before the fad is done with.  And while the first Twilight made a decent dime on a small budget, it was aimed mostly at tween girls and an older female crowd.  Buffy has a more broad market of fans that are in it for more than just the mild soft core chick porn that Twilight is.

Not only that, but if the producers do not strike while the iron is hot, we could end up with a non Whedon Buffy movie floating out in open water with out a life raft as the ship sailed on the Vampire fad.

I pray that the Kuzui’s do the proper thing and let Whedon take the helm. If not, we might end up with another American Godzilla film, with the character in name only.