Buffy the Vampire Slayer Audiobook Series Slayers Cancelled at Audible
Slayers has been staked: There will be no follow-up to Audible‘s Slayers: A Buffyverse Story, co-author Christopher Golden said Wednesday.
“Hugely disappointed to share that, despite its enormous success, Disney has refused to allow Audible to proceed with future seasons of SLAYERS: A BUFFYVERSE STORY,” Golden posted to his social media channels. “To my knowledge, they have provided no explanation.”
Golden references Disney because The Walt Disney Company owns 20th Century Studios, which holds the license to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. TVLine has reached out to Audible and 20th Television for comment.
“Working with this cast, the production team, and the folks at Audible UK — and seeing the joy in the fan community —has been one of the happiest experiences of my career,” he continued. “I’m sorry we won’t be able to continue on, but I’m so glad we were able to bring these characters back to you.”
Amber Benson, who played Tara in the original series and the audiobook and co-wrote/co-directed the project with Golden, added via Instagram: “I think Chris speaks for everyone involved — we wish we could have made more! But grateful for what we were able to accomplish with Season One. We worked with the best cast and crew — and felt so loved and supported by @audible & @audible_uk, and the incredible Buffy fans! “
Slayers: A Buffyverse Story is set 20 years after the series finale with several of the original series’ cast members reprising their roles. The returnees include: James Marsters (Spike), Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia), Anthony Head (Giles), Juliet Landau (Drusilla), Emma Caulfield (Anya), Amber Benson (Tara), James Charles Leary (Clem) and Danny Strong (Jonathan).
The audio-only story came out in October 2023 and consists of nine episodes, in which Spike goes deep undercover in Los Angeles, “convincing the forces of darkness that he’s back to his evil ways,” reads the official description. “But when his cover is compromised by 16-year-old Indira Nunnally (The Equalizer‘s Laya DeLeon Hayes), Spike finds himself on baby-slayer-sitting duty once more. While he attempts to track down a watcher for his eager new protégé, their paths collide with the veteran Slayer of a parallel reality where Buffy Summers never existed and Cordelia Chase is the one-and-only Slayer. And Cordelia needs Spike’s help with a classic big bad terrorizing her world… his old flame, Drusilla.”
When TVLine spoke with Benson ahead of the audiobook’s launch, she said she hoped there’d be more Slayers in the future.
“We would love to do a second season,” she said at at the time. “We beg you Disney and Audible to let us do more. We love you guys so much. You’ve been such wonderful collaborators. Please let us do a second season! Now we have Laya [DeLeon Hayes], who plays Indira, who’s now a BAFTA-award winning artist, so we’ve gotta put that on the poster!” She laughed. “We have this incredible group of people. It’ll be sad to squander that if we don’t do more.”
Are you bummed about Slayers’ fate? Sound off in the comments!
Why would they allow one season but not subsequent seasons especially as the first one seems to have done well?
“They” = Disney
Are they developing their own Buffy follow-up?
I think so now I saw an article on comicbookmoviecom about Dolly Parton talking about them developing something
Dolly was a producer of the tv show through her company so Im sure she would know
Interesting. I hope it’s a sign they want to do something animated, perhaps. Or that reboot we heard so much about.
I don’t know what anyone else’s take on the first audiodrama was, but for me it was a bit uneven. I fell out of listening to it, though I keep meaning to finish… Some actors really brought it, but some of the ones who were playing different versions of their previous character felt a little off to me. Esp Benson. It was a bit…arch. Unnatural. The Tara/Dru scenes were underwhelming and confusing. But I really liked the parts with Spike, Clem, and the new character, Indira. Cordelia and Anya were also solid.
Why wouldn’t they allow this, there is a huge audience for audible books, and it gets larger by the day.
Let’s be honest – this audiobook was terribly written. I listened to the whole thing, my two friends had no interest after the first hour, and the performances got a bit better, but it was a slog. As excited as I was for Anya’s resurrection, this mishmash of characters never gelled and half of them never got fully back into character. They were reading and performing lines – not embodying the characters. And I wanted to LOVE this. But Spike never felt right, Tara was just awful all-around, Giles felt sleepy and Anya sounded like someone else (and don’t even get started on Anyanka and Jasper…ugh). Only Charisma and Juliet really tapped into their characters. So while this should have been fun, I am not surprised we aren’t getting more.
Sorry to reply to myself here, but I remembered who Anya sounded like – she sounded like Idina Menzel almost the entire time. Drove me nuts.
never knew this came out
A Buffy show without Buffy (or Angel? Or Willow? or Xander?) Shocked that it was cancelled! Just shocked!