{"id":1083112,"date":"2026-07-11T17:44:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T17:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1083112\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T17:44:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T17:44:16","slug":"the-1992-movie-donald-sutherland-wanted-to-delete-from-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1083112\/","title":{"rendered":"The 1992 movie Donald Sutherland wanted to delete from history"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img width=\"1140\" height=\"855\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Donald-Sutherland-Actor-2017-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\" class=\"attachment-single-feature size-single-feature wp-post-image\" alt=\"Donald Sutherland - Actor - 2017\" layout=\"fill\"  style=\"object-position: 50% 20%\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Credit: Far Out \/ YouTube Still<\/p>\n<p> Sat 11 July 2026 16:15, UK <\/p>\n<p>In 2024, the world mourned the loss of a true great in <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/tags\/donald-sutherland\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">Donald Sutherland<\/a>. He was never a conventional movie megastar, largely because of his unconventional looks, but he possessed immense acting talent, allowing him to excel in every kind of role, whether hero, villain, dramatic lead or comic relief.<\/p>\n<p>Apart from the dozens of iconic movies bearing his memorable visage, his legacy carries through his sons, Angus, Rossif, and Kiefer, but one of his oft-forgotten projects is the 1992 Joss Whedon-written and Fran Rubel Kuzui-directed Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which proved to be quite a controversial production.<\/p>\n<p>Different from the hugely successful TV show that would come later, the film starred Sutherland as Merrick Jamison-Smythe, a mysterious man who informs Kristy Swanson\u2019s Buffy Summers of her vampire-killing destiny, against the backdrop of a Los Angeles high school. Alongside this, it also starred Luke Perry, Rutger Hauer, and <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/why-ben-affleck-was-cut-from-buffy-movie\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">an uncredited Ben Affleck<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>The Buffy movie was in trouble from the get-go, as after selling the rights to <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/sarah-michelle-gellar-dolly-parton-buffy-the-vampire-slayer\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">Dolly Parton\u2019s production company<\/a>, Whedon immediately felt the film getting away from him. He disagreed with the direction of the story so much that he actually quit the production early on, which essentially gave 20th Century Fox free rein to meddle with the script as much as possible. <\/p>\n<p>Moreover, filming also had to be completed in just five weeks, owing to Perry\u2019s schedule on Beverly Hills, 90210, and in the year 2000, Sutherland sat down with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/culture\/2000\/may\/30\/artsfeatures3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">The Guardian<\/a> to discuss the troubled nature of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He took issue with the fact that Merrick was killed by a vampire halfway through the film, which led to an interesting discussion with Kuzui. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI liked the idea of that film,\u201d he explained, \u201cThe only thing I had asked the director was that it seemed incorrect that my character would die, and she said to me, \u2018That\u2019s because you want to be in the sequel\u2019. At that point, I realised I was in the wrong film.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It should be noted that another purported reason behind Whedon\u2019s departure was Sutherland\u2019s supposedly poor behaviour on set. According to the screenwriter, the veteran star was prone to improvising a lot of his lines, which Kuzui let him get away with, and he also claimed that Sutherland was entitled, as he knew he was the biggest star working on the film. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Further reading: Cutting Room Floor<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Although it should be said that any accusations of <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/virtually-identical-cult-classic-horror-slapped-with-10-million-lawsuit\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">poor on-set behaviour made by Joss Whedon must be considered incredibly ironic<\/a> and taken with a massive grain of salt.<\/p>\n<p>As we all know, the movie ended up being just a footnote in the history of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and an irate Whedon reworked the idea into a TV show for The WB five years later, with Sarah Michelle Gellar in the lead role. After seven seasons and 144 episodes, it is now considered one of the greatest TV series ever made, with Merrick even returning to the show, although this time played by Richard Riehle. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>  <a class=\"fw\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" style=\"\"> ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"28\" height=\"28\" src=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/wp-content\/themes\/far-out-magazine\/img\/google-discover.svg\" alt=\"\"\/> <\/a>   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ YouTube Still Sat 11 July 2026 16:15, UK In 2024, the world mourned the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1083113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3935],"tags":[191985,290195,129051,7943,75594,77,2699,189178,3943,22265,16,15,67842],"class_list":["post-1083112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-1990s","tag-290195","tag-action-movies","tag-buffy-the-vampire-slayer","tag-donald-sutherland","tag-entertainment","tag-fantasy","tag-joss-whedon","tag-movies","tag-sarah-michelle-gellar","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-vampire"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116902591813574594","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1083112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1083113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1083112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1083112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1083112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}