Fran Rubel Kuzui is an American film director and producer who is best known as the director of the light-hearted 1992 Buffy the Vampire Slayer film—whose much-darker original screenplay was the basis for the television series of the same name. She discovered the screenplay of then-unknown television writer Joss Whedon and put together the financing to produce the picture. Her vision of the film did not match Whedon's, and the film received mixed reviews, which noted the uneven direction and comic timing.