Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon told fans that a spinoff project is still a possibility when asked about the raft of rumored spinoffs that never came to fruition after the show left the air nearly five years ago.

Asked about future Buffy TV or film projects, Whedon said, "My answer would be, like, there are so many stars that would have to align [for them to happen]. But, you know, there’s a reason I worked with all of these people for so long. They’re enormously talented. And clearly, from the comic, it’s a story that I can’t let go of. I think it would be really cool."

Whedon spoke as part of a panel at the William S. Paley Television Festival March 20 in Hollywood that reunited him with his Buffy cast members Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nicholas Brendon, James Marsters, Emma Caulfield, Michelle Trachtenberg, Charisma Carpenter, Seth Green and Amber Benson and fellow producers Marti Noxon and David Greenwalt.

Once the cult hit Buffy went off the air, reports circulated that Whedon was variously developing a spinoff series that would feature the vampire Spike (Marsters) or a British show that would feature the character of Rupert Giles (Anthony Stewart Head). None came to pass.

Since then, Whedon and several of his writers and artists have picked up the story of Buffy Summers and her "Scooby Gang" in a series of comics for Dark Horse, characterized as "season eight" of the TV show. Whedon let loose a spoiler that Green’s character, the werewolf Oz, would appear in a future issue of the comic.

TV Guide critic Matt Roush, who moderated the Paley reunion panel discussion, asked whether the comic—which has morphed and developed the Buffy mythology well beyond the show’s season finale—would ultimately affect any Buffy spinoff TV shows or films.

"Hypothetically, if you could make things align, that would be fun," Whedon said, adding: "And it would be lovely to make it all tie in. But if I had to shoot down everything I’m doing in the comics because we were doing a project [and] I was filming with these actual people, I wouldn’t lose a lot of sleep."

Before the panel discussion, fans screened the musical episode "Once More With Feeling." Whedon later said that he had just wrapped production on another musical project. "I literally drove here from wrapping the shooting on a little independent short of my own called Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, my next musical, starring Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day. And it’s going to come out somewhere, at some point, possibly on a computer. We haven’t figure that out yet. And it’s awesome." Noxon admitted that she also has a small part.

Could Buffy wind up in musical form on Broadway? "I would love to take a Buffy to Broadway," Whedon said. "It would not be this [’Once More With Feeling’]. This is an episode of television. ... You would have to start from scratch. I’ve spent some time daydreaming about it, because I’m me."

Would any of his Buffy cast be on board? Most raised their hands—with the notable exception of Gellar, who smiled, shook her head and said, "I’m out."