Sarah Michelle Gellar has kept a relatively low profile since hanging up her various weaponry after Buffy The Vampire Slayer. When you are powerful enough to turn down roles in both Fight Club and American Beauty, it’s easy to pick and choose the type of stuff you want to do, like Cruel Intentions. Because who would really make a movie like that if they didn’t feel secure in their career?
Gellar has thrived in a specific type of fantasy-adjacent horror projects: the American remake of The Grudge, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, and the Teenage Mutant Minja Turtles animated film, TMNT, just to name a few. But there is one genre Gellar has stayed away from, and that’s the busy world of Marvel superheroes.
The actress told The Guardian that Marvel movies don’t appeal to her as a woman who has experienced the negatives of bad press. “Every time a Marvel movie tries to do a female cast, it just gets torn apart. Unfortunately, audiences weren’t as accepting,” Gellar said. While there are many female-led Marvel movies and shows from the past few years, they are always flooded with poor reviews. She added, “There’s still this mentality of ‘the male superhero,’ this very backward way of thinking.” That, combined with losing out on roles due to the Marvel demand leaves many Marvel actresses stuck in limbo.
Even though she won’t be in a Marvel movie anytime soon, Gellar is starring in the new Teen Wolf spinoff Wolf Pack on Paramount+, which brings her back to her familiar genre of “fighting a bunch of supernatural beasts” on a weekly basis. It’s what she does best!
While she declined to speak about her former Buffy boss Joss Whedon, Gellar says that she just wants to make the industry safe for everyone. “Where I gain is making sure that there’s better experiences for the next generation.” Maybe she should be leading the next Marvel phase, then.