Few shows are as full of adventure and endlessly rewatchable as Xena: Warrior Princess, and that is as true today as it was when the show launched in 1995. The action was thrilling, the stories were epic, and the series featured the perfect amount of comedy and camp. That’s why fans were thrilled to hear there was a reboot in development, though the previous story of Xena and Gabrielle wasn’t going to be featured. Now Lucy Lawless has addressed the reboot, while also revealing what she would have wanted to see instead.
On Instagram, Lawless revealed where she stood on rebooting the TV series, especially when that original series still holds up so well. “I’d like to share my thoughts on the Xena: Warrior Princess reboot that was planned for 2015–2016 but, unfortunately, never came to fruition due to creative differences. I’ve always wondered whether a new TV series was really necessary when the original Xena: Warrior Princess had already become a cult classic and continues to attract new fans decades later,” Lawless wrote. “In my opinion, it would have been far more interesting to make a full-length feature film exploring Xena’s past.”
Lawless goes into detail about what a movie would focus on, and that’s Xena’s dark past. This was a frequent part of the original series, as Xena was always running into people who had issues with her from the past. Lawless sees a lot of potential there to explore what set her on that path in the first place and how she became the deadly warrior that would end up becoming one of the world’s most formidable heroes.
“I would have loved to see her childhood, her birth, her family, her life in Amphipolis, her first hardships, the loss of her brother, and the events that gradually shaped her character and ultimately led her down the dark path of becoming a ruthless warrior,” Lawless wrote.
“A film like this could have explored Xena’s character in much greater depth and answered many questions that were only briefly touched upon in the series. We could have seen what truly broke her, why she became such a feared warrior, and how the legend of Xena began long before her journey toward redemption,” Lawless wrote.
A prequel movie would certainly be an interesting way to dive back into the franchise, though there is a part of me that would still love to see it revived in a television format. The reboot was going to take an anthology approach, and wouldn’t feature the same story of Xena and Gabrielle, at least not in the way it was presented in the original series.
A prequel movie or series would be a way to avoid having to deal with that until later, as you could focus on a young Xena’s story, and if executed correctly, you could get several seasons out of that journey and then connect it to the original series if you wanted to down the line.
Whether a Xena reboot or revival happens is up in the air, but hopefully at some point in time the character will once again grace the small or big screen.
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