It’s been 23 years since “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” went off the air. In 2026 Hollywood, that’s an eternity for valuable IP, which is why it was such a surprise when Hulu scrapped its much-anticipated franchise reboot, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer: New Sunnydale” last month. The news was especially unexpected after the streamer coaxed a reluctant Sarah Michelle Gellar to bring back her original Buffy character and shot a $12 million pilot, directed by Oscar-winner Chloé Zhao, that introduced a new generation of Sunnydale High School characters.

It was Gellar who broke the disappointing news about the reboot, laying blame at the feet of a Hulu executive who was not a fan of the original series. Sources close to the production and Hulu then quickly put an alternative version of events into the trades: After months of deliberations and rewrites, Zhao’s pilot had problems deemed unsalvageable. Moving forward with the project would be throwing good money after bad.

While we can assume this represents Hulu executives’ perspective on the situation, it actually points to the studio’s failure, not the director’s. In detailing the chain of events that compelled Hulu to move on, what emerges is a case study of how not to handle the reboot of a valuable TV franchise.

Zhao made clear she was a passionate fan of the original “Buffy” and her priority was “to be truthful to the show, to be truthful to our fans.”

Variety’s reporting indicates that did not necessarily make Zhao the right choice, as the excellent veteran TV reporter Kate Aurthur wrote, “Zhao’s prodigious skills as a director didn’t lend themselves to a television pilot that requires a lot of exposition. It was undershot, and there wasn’t any coverage. The performances from the actors playing the new characters, who need to make a strong impression as they’re introduced, were under-directed, the sources said.”

Taken at face value, this backhanded compliment of Zhao’s “prodigious skills” gently lays the blame at the director’s feet, but, if examined more closely, should prompt a number of hard questions for Hulu execs.

Zhao’s last three feature films showcase her evolution as a director. The Oscar-winning “Nomadland” was the culmination of her work with non-professional actors and a restless handheld exploration of the open western landscape. The Oscar-nominated “Hamnet” saw a maturing of that style, with a more patient camera, in which the tension comes from inside long single takes featuring classically trained actors.

And with “Eternals,” Zhao was able to balance her thematic and filmmaking interests with the well-established Marvel Cinematic Universe. Zhao had numerous conversations with the Marvel brass and was given a team of technicians, VFX wizards, stunt choreographers, and a casting master to usher her on board the well-established ship.

If the real problem was Zhao’s direction of the “New Sunnydale” pilot, this leads us to our first question for Hulu’s leadership:

What conversations were had with Zhao about her approach to directing the pilot, especially regarding coverage and performances?

The visual language of a TV series evolves, but the initial template is established in the pilot. For example, under executive producer/director Mark Mylod, “Succession” became something different, but the DNA of the series’ handheld, multi-camera, zoom-filled documentary style was established in the pilot by director Adam McKay.

When studios hire bold, distinct, established directors, like McKay or Zhao, it’s because they want some essence of what they bring to the table to be imbued into the series’ visual language.

This leads to our second question:

What about Zhao’s approach to directing the pilot initially excited Hulu about having her set the template for the series moving forward?

How aligned Hulu was with Zhao seems to be in serious question, and, let’s be clear, that’s on Hulu — especially considering the importance of getting the “Buffy” reboot right. But, again, let’s give Hulu the benefit of the doubt and assume they had a clear understanding of what Zhao was bringing to the table:

Did Hulu execs watch the dailies? If yes, did they not notice the coverage and performance issues they now find so glaring?

Here’s what seems extremely unlikely: Zhao went rogue, mailed it in, or utterly failed in delivering her vision of “Buffy.” Of course, it’s also highly unlikely that Zhao’s direction was actually what killed the reboot.

If Hulu’s Disney brethren at Searchlight had decided Zhao’s directing of “Nomadland” wasn’t working, it likely would have been the end of the film — it would have been quietly buried, with minimal resources put into publicity and marketing. There’s no separating Zhao from an auteur-driven project like that film.

But that’s simply not the case with a TV pilot, which, as Gellar indicated, is just the first crack at establishing the template for the series. “Usually, a pilot doesn’t air in its entirety ever,” said Gellar last in an interview with SiriusXM’s Page Six Radio. “It’s a learning tool. I mean, the original ‘Buffy’ pilot was nothing to do with the show. It was a different Willow [Alyson Hannigan’s character], I mean, it’s a very different show. But those are learning tools and that’s what a pilot is.”

If Hulu didn’t like Zhao’s coverage or directing of the actors, it can be redone. Yes, reshooting is a serious expense, probably in the neighborhood of $400 to 600K a day, but if the initial investment in finding locations, building and dressing sets, costumes, and casting are in place, it’s an acceptable, managable, and even expected cost for studios when they believe that the bones of a successful series are otherwise in place.

If the major problem was a misalignment of how the pilot was directed, why couldn’t it be fixed with reshoots?

It’s in the answer to this question that it becomes clear Zhao was a high-profile scapegoat for more fundamental problems. According to Variety, since the pilot was shot last summer, writers/creators/showrunners Nora and Lilla Zuckerman (“Poker Face) did rewrites and addressed perceived problems, such as Gellar not appearing until the very end of the first episode.

The Hollywood Reporter’s James Hibberd lent further insight, reporting that, while the Zuckermans’ rewritten pilot was seen as a big improvement, “when looking at the prospective season as a whole, the studio ultimately felt the revival effort wasn’t working and ruled against a pilot reshoot and series order.”

This leads to a more potentially damning question:

Did Hulu greenlight “Buffy the Vampire Slayer: New Sunnydale” pilot without believing it had a strong vision and fleshed-out concept for the series as a whole?

The desire to bring back “Buffy” was understandably strong. It’s a franchise that remains culturally relevant and with cross-generation potential — the original series means a great deal to Gen X and millennials, but more importantly, has the strong potential to appeal to younger audiences. How to bridge the old with the new became significantly more complicated by the firestorm surrounding the accusations that “Buffy” creator Joss Whedon was abusive, including with “Buffy” cast members.

It was reported that Zhao was the one who convinced Gellar, who had been against revisiting her role, to rejoin the “Buffy” universe. Together, the face of the franchise and the Oscar-winning director, saw themselves, according to Gellar, as “guardians of the original show.” Presumably, this presented Hulu with its clearest, cleanest path to finally getting past the Whedon mess that had cast a shadow over the franchise espousing female empowerment.

But it makes one wonder:

Did Hulu execs feel compelled to take advantage of this opening and rush the pilot into production?

Possibly the clearest sign Hulu felt compelled to rush the project before it was on firm ground are reports that executives were concerned the pilot was “playing too young.” At the heart of the problem, according to Variety, was the “young appearance” of lead Ryan Kiera Armstrong, who played the new teenage slayer set to take Buffy’s place. Armstrong turned 16 last month.

Had Hulu not been aware that the pilot was shot with a then-15-year-old in the lead? Did they not see screen, wardrobe, or camera tests of the young actor filling Gellar’s sizable shoes?

Sarcasm aside, how to handle casting teenage characters in a recurring TV series is tricky. Many series cast older actors who can age down, supplying a consistency and comfort for audiences, and avoiding the realism of how young a 15-year-old high school freshman or sophomore actually looks on screen. It also avoids the dramatic year-to-year changes in the physical appearance of performers still going through puberty, which was embraced by “Stranger Things” and the “Harry Potter” films, which began with characters in their middle school years.

There’s no definitive right or wrong way to approach this casting decision, but it is a series-defining choice that is directly tied to how a studio views its potential audience.

That something so fundamental snuck up on Hulu, after the pilot was shot, begs the question:

Beyond needing to revive the franchise, did Hulu execs actually know what they wanted?

A frustrated Gellar made headlines when she told People that the Hulu executive overseeing the “Buffy” reboot — later reported to be Craig Erwich, the recently promoted president of Disney Television — was not a fan of the original, and “was proud to constantly remind us that he had never seen the entirety of the series and how it wasn’t for him.”

Putting aside the poor judgment of saying this to the creative team, especially Gellar, it’s not essential for Erwich to be a fan — I take comfort knowing the programming of a major streamer is not dictated by the tastes of a lone 58-year-old executive. But it is essential that Erwich and his team provide clear direction and guidance on expectations, especially if they haven’t fully bought into the creative team’s vision, and are threading the needle of how exactly to bring back a beloved series that’s been off the air for a quarter of a century and whose name-above-title creator’s actions alienated both cast and fans.

The connective tissue underlying all the reporting of this debacle is that Hulu didn’t have a clue what it wanted. The failure is its own, and painting this as the creative team not delivering, and alienating Gellar in the process, only makes reviving the franchise that much harder.

Hulu did not respond to IndieWire’s requests for comment.