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Warner Bros. Rebooting Buffy; Joss Whedon Has "Mixed Emotions"

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is coming back — to the big screen. Warner Bros. plans to remake the 1992 film that paved way for the 1997 cult series, the company announced Monday. Check out photos from Buffy the Vampire Slayer Details are being kept under wraps, but the film will not revisit the heroine's high school days. Joss Whedon, who wrote the screenplay for the first film and created the beloved television show, will not be part of the project. And he doesn't sound thrilled about it...

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Joyce Eng

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is coming back — to the big screen.

Warner Bros. plans to remake the 1992 film that paved way for the 1997 cult series, the company announced Monday.

Check out photos from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Details are being kept under wraps, but the film will not revisit the heroine's high school days. Joss Whedon, who wrote the screenplay for the first film and created the beloved television show, will not be part of the project. And he doesn't sound thrilled about it.

"This is a sad, sad reflection on our times, when people must feed off the carcasses of beloved stories from their youths—just because they can't think of an original idea of their own, like I did with my Avengers idea that I made up myself," Whedon told E! Online via e-mail. "Obviously I have strong, mixed emotions about something like this.

"I always hoped that Buffy would live on even after my death.  But, you know, AFTER," Whedon continued. "I don't love the idea of my creation in other hands, but I'm also well aware that many more hands than mine went into making that show what it was. And there is no legal grounds for doing anything other than sighing audibly."
Atlas Entertainment's Charles Roven and Steve Alexander will produce the movie, alongside Vertigo Entertainment's Doug Davison and Roy Lee (The RingHow to Train Your DragonThe Departed). Whit Anderson is writing the script.

"Whit approached us with an exciting idea about how to update Buffy," Roven said. "There is an active fan base eagerly awaiting this character's return to the big screen. We're thrilled to team up with Doug and Roy on a re-imagining of Buffy and the world she inhabits.... She'll be just as witty, tough and sexy as we all remember her to be."
Starring Kristy Swanson, the initial movie was a campy horror flick — a style with which Whedon was dissatisfied. He later developed his original darker vision for the WB/UPN series, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, which ran for seven seasons and spawned a spinoff, Angel.
The new Buffy film will hit theaters in 2012 or late 2011, Roven tells the Los Angeles Times.
Will you check out the new Buffy?