Buffy the Vampire Slayer – Picture: FOX
It’s been three years since Buffy the Vampire Slayer departed Netflix and in all likelihood won’t be returning. With that said, it’s not all bad news as we’ll explain below. Here’s why Buffy the Vampire Slayer isn’t on Netflix in 2020 and beyond.
First of all, if you haven’t heard of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where the heck have you been? The series ran from 1997 for six years over seven seasons on The WB and then UPN.
It followed a young woman who finds out that her role in the world is the kill vampires. Sarah Michelle Gellar plays the lead role of Buffy with other notable talents involved including Alyson Hannigan, Nicholas Brendon, Anthony Head, and James Marsters.
Joss Whedon is behind the project with Marti Noxon being one of the notable producers behind the show (more on why we mention this in a second).
The series was due to be rebooted (although it’ll technically be a sequel series) but that’s yet to come to fruition.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer was on Netflix US up until 2017
Yes, that’s right, once upon a time, Buffy was on Netflix in its entirety.
However, as with most licensed content from the big channel providers (in this case the owner of the show being Fox), many older licenses are no longer being put out to Netflix in favor of rival streaming companies often owned by the owner of the content.
The series at the time of leaving on April 1st, 2017 had been streaming since 2012.
As we mentioned, Fox owns the show (now owned by Disney, of course) and currently streams on both Hulu (owned by Disney) and Amazon Prime Video in the form of licensing too.
Netflix UK also had access to the show between May 2013 and June 2016.
The possibility of Buffy the Vampire Slayer coming back to Netflix seems remote.
There is some good news, however.
As we mentioned above, Marti Noxon now works with Netflix on an output deal that was struck in November 2018. One of her first projects is set to be The Witches of New York which sounds like it will have a similar feel to Buffy the Vampire Slayer so keep your eyes peeled for that.
That’s all we have for now. If anything changes and Netflix does manage to reacquire the streaming rights to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, we’ll let you know.
