"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" creator Joss Whedon was quite talkative about his future television projects following the Saturn Awards June 10 in Century City, Calif., and shared some updates with Cinescape Online.

He is prepping his highly-anticipated new science fiction series "Firefly" for the fall, and Whedon mentioned that there was a bit of conflict with the Fox Network on the balance of drama and action in the pilot.

"The 'lost' pilot isn't really lost," Whedeon said about reports that the show's pilot was being scrapped. "We shot it and one of the struggles I'm having with Fox is that I pitched the show as a drama with action in it, but Fox wants more action and less drama, so we've gone back to shoot more action scenes, which I don't necessarily disagree with. But the thing is that Fox thinks that they want to start the series with an episode where the characters are already up and running. We see them when they are already familiar with their world. Whereas the first pilot we shot was like an origin story. Fox thinks we don't need to start with the story of how they got started, though I don't necessarily agree.

"However, whether we decide to start the series with the first pilot or not, that story will be played this season. It will either play as the opening two-hour movie, or it will play later in the season as a 'look-back' episode where the audience gets to see how the cast got together."

One thing Whedon did deny is that there were problems getting the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" animated series on the air, especially after Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy) and David Boreanaz ("Angel") backed out.

"The animated series is going very well, but like everything else, it takes so much longer than I would like," Whedon said. "BUt we have about nine completed scripts, written by the 'Buffy' writers, and we have almost the entire cast signed on to do the voices. Think of it as 'Buffy: Year One,' we're going back to high school and telling the stories that we didn't get to tell back then."

Whedon seemingly dismissed reports that this coming season of "Buffy" will be the show's last, and said if there is a movie project looming, there won't be serious talk about it until after the series ends.

"I don't know" how many more years the show will be on, Whedon said. "I can't really be sure. Every year might be the end."

Any proposed movie on the series is "just a fantasy while the series is on the air. That wil never happen with the show still on the air. I don't want to just do a longer episode and put it on the big screen. Making the show is enough like making a movie for me."

Finally, Whedon commented on the upcoming BBC spinoff project focused on Anthony Stewart Head's character of Giles.

"It had to be delayed because 'Firefly' came up so fast," Whedon said. "I had to concentrate on ('Firefly'), but the interest is still there and that porject is still very much alive."