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Tim Minear was behind an idea for a Buffy spin-off in 2003 featuring Eliza Dushku as the popular antihero slayer Faith. Instead, Dushku would go on to star as the main character in the series Tru Calling.
IGN asked Eliza Dushku about the Faith spin-off:
IGNFF: I heard they were actually devising a Faith spin-off for you. Why did you decide not to go that route?
Dushku: The idea for the Faith spin-off just kind of came up in discussion because everyone really, I think, was feeling like this show's going to end and there are all these fans who love it so much and who love these characters and so, if possible, how could we extend that? I just personally felt like... It would have been a really hard thing to do, and not that I wouldn't have been up for a challenge, but with it coming on immediately following the show, I think that those would have been really big boots to fill. I think it would have been compared to Buffy. And just in terms of me, I've played that character on and off for five years now and I've changed a lot and while the character of Faith changed when I came back because I've changed, I felt like maybe it was time to... I mean, I love Faith. She's my girl and she's been really good to me, but I kind of just wanted to try something else. Purely that, because it had nothing to do with me not trusting Joss and his team of writers, who I just think are amazing. Tim Minear and Drew Goddard and Marti Noxon and all these people, they're so talented and it had nothing to do with me doubting that they could make this show amazing, but I just... I don't know, sometimes you have to go with your gut, and my gut was telling me that I maybe needed to try something else that was just different. Tim Minear explained some of the details about the spin-off and reasons why it did not happen:
"I had come up with a pitch. Eliza was gracious, kind and wonderful, but she felt like she wanted to do something new. There is no hard feelings there. But the show was basically going to be Faith meets Kung Fu. It would have been Faith, probably on a motorcycle, crossing the earth, trying to find her place in the world. I'm sure it would get an arc at some point, but the idea of her rooted somewhere seemed wrong to me. The idea of her constantly on the move seemed right to me. And she broke out of prison (on Angel) so there would have been some people after her.
Tru Calling producer Dawn Parouse later admitted uncertainty during the show's development that Eliza would choose it over the spin-off.
"We weren't quite sure if we were going to get [Eliza], because there were rumors that there was going to be a Buffy spin-off for her.
Ideas intended for the spin-off were later borrowed in small part by Brian K. Vaughan for his "No Future for You" arc in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight.
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