Cult TV favourite Buffy The Vampire Slayer is being remade – more than 20 years after the first episode.

The supernatural drama ran from 1997 to 2003 and starred Sarah Michelle Gellar in the lead role.

The show was created by Joss Whedon and dubbed a feminist parable.

Buffy creator Joss Whedon (Ian West/PA)
Buffy creator Joss Whedon (Ian West/PA)

The Hollywood Reporter, which revealed the reboot, said that an unnamed black actress will step into the star role, previously held by Gellar, in the “contemporary” adaptation.

Whedon will executive produce the series, penned by Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D writer Monica Owusu-Breen, and a network is yet to be confirmed.

But not everyone has welcomed the reboot.

@michaelp93 wrote on Twitter: “I’m sorry but literally nobody asked for a Buffy reboot. A revival… yes. But not a reboot.

“The original TV series told a perfect story and did everything it set out to do (revolutionising television in the process). Why would you mess with such greatness?”

And @lilliamr wrote: “I loved Buffy. But you know what else I love? When Hollywood looks at new stories by people of colour instead of rebooting old ones and changing the casting.”

Gellar, who played vampire-battling high school student Buffy, recently marked 21 years since the first episode of the show by sharing snaps from behind the scenes.

And she told Entertainment Weekly: “It’s the ultimate metaphor: horrors of adolescence manifesting through these actual monsters. It’s the hardest time of life.”

Anthony Head (Steve Parsons/PA)
Anthony Head (Steve Parsons/PA)

Buffy also starred British actor Anthony Head, who the Press Association recently revealed has landed a role as a smooth-talker in Radio 4 soap The Archers, playing Rupert Giles.