Firefly Movie Gets The Green Light

An anonymous reader writes "According to FireflyFans.net and Ain't It Cool News, Universal has greenlit production of 'Serenity,' the motion picture based on Joss Whedon's cancelled TV series 'Firefly.' Both sites point to an article from Variety that says the film will start production in June, and be ready for release in 2005." The informative Whedonesque weblog is also monitoring developments regarding this much-deserved resurrection.

Comments

firefly

[panxerox]

OIC firefly is good enough for a dvd set and good enough for a movie but not good enough for a series. Sometimes I wonder about the people making the decisions. Are they making a decision to not do a series because of business reasons or just well because they say so and those weenie viewers arent going to change our minds because they might get it in their heads that they matter. Yes I'm bitter. Its like they say "come here viewers come check out this great new series!" then they go "SUCKERS !! haha no show for you !!".

Re:firefly

[eatenn]

"OIC firefly is good enough for a dvd set and good enough for a movie but not good enough for a series."

Financially speaking, I would say that Firefly may actually be better suited to movies than television. Whedon's shows are excellent... and also extremely expensive. Having to spend huge amounts of money for 22 episodes every year means that the corporate heads demand a pretty big payback pretty damn quick. Fox couldn't really afford for viewers to ease into the show (and God knows a Friday night time-slot didn't help). It's for similar reasons that Buffy left the WB and Angel was recently cancelled.

As a motion picture though, they spend the big bucks once and reap the benefits for months in merchandise, rentals, etc. You don't get that kind of a pay-off with TV (at least not that quickly). I love Whedon's serial storytelling, but I'm excited to see how he adapts to the big screen.

Re:firefly

[Issue9mm]

Hopefully he's improved on his big-screen capabilities since the original Buffy and Alien 4. Ick.

Actually tho, seeing how he much time he's taken in perfecting the series runs he's had, I have little doubt that Serenity will be spectacular. I just hope that he's able to work within a 2 hour movie. His best plots have taken seasons to develop, much less a few hours.

-9mm-

Re:firefly

[Cecil]

Its like they say "come here viewers come check out this great new series!" then they go "SUCKERS !! haha no show for you !!".

I'm pretty sure that's actually the thought process they go though. Good call.

In case you couldn't guess from the URL of my website -- I'm bitter too. Firefly rocks. Futurama rocks. Family guy rocks. Fox sucks.

Re:firefly

[teraph]

Hopefully he's improved on his big-screen capabilities since the original Buffy and Alien 4. Ick.

Well, it's hard to tell what the original scripts were like. A good script can become awful between the day it's bought and the day it's released in a theater.

You have a half-dozen suits, directors, and editors to screw it up. (We're assuming here that the original script was good.)

seeing how he much time he's taken in perfecting the series runs he's had, I have little doubt that Serenity will be spectacular.

Yes. His TV shows are probably the better indicator of the quality of his writing, since that is where he has the most control. Everything he has done for film has had multiple hands, for good or ill. (And he's repeatedly stated his disappointment at both the Buffy movie and Alien Resurrection. He was once mis-identified as having written an episode of "Boy Meets World" and he expressed more pride in that incorrect credit than his writing of Resurrection.)

It's possible that the Firefly film will suck, maybe because he fails to produce a good script, maybe because Universal selects someone else to direct, maybe because the producers demand bad changes.

That's why he's better in TV. Head writers (who are almost always the producers) are nearly Gods with regard to how their scripts read and show up on screen. The network has some input, but much of it is Standards and Practices stuff (i.e., the censors).

In film, the producers own the script and can do as they please. And then the director is in control the moment shooting starts (with input from the producers).

Film writing is good money, but it's very little control. (Unless you make it yourself.)

Re:firefly

[eatenn]

Hopefully he's improved on his big-screen capabilities since the original Buffy and Alien 4. Ick.

Yeck. Being president of the Joss Whedon Stalker Club, I may be a little biased, but I've read Whedon's draft of the Buffy movie (which he didn't direct), and the version that actually made it to the theatres... Whedon's draft is much better. Apparently Donald Sutherland insisted on writing his own dialog, the studio wanted it to be more of a teen comedy, and the director didn't understand the material. It's the nature of the business that scripts get fucked with by a series of producers, directors, and studio heads who are constantly looking for ways to fit a monkey into the story somehow.

Whedon has also stated that no one hates Alien 4 more than he does. He had other people dictating what he was supposed to write.

I've also had the experience in film school having one of my scripts approved for production and then butchered beyond all recognition. It ain't fun.

Re:firefly

[PowerPill]

Fox had never zipped up the deal for a complete season of Firefly so right from the start it was a nail biter for Joss. Fox didn't even allow the premiere (Serenity) to be the premiere because they thought it lacked a certain pace. If you take notice, Fox generally takes the approach of more action right at the get go = better ratings over elegantly gripping television. So yes, it was that Whedon's vision didn't quite fit Fox's business model or formula rather. All of this is actually touched on in the box set.

Re:firefly

[TheCyko1]

I enjoyed Firefly except for those random bits of bad chinese. I suspect that they were talking in mandarin, maybe even cantonese, but the actors always butchered the language so badly that it always sounded more like nails on the chalkboard.

Re:firefly

[TheLoneDanger]

It was Mandarin, except for one part when the engine breaks down and the ship broadcasts a warning that oxygen's low, check life support etc. That was Cantonese spoken fluently. I assume they just asked someone Chinese to say what they wanted "in Chinese" and that person just assumed Cantonese (which is fairly prevalent in North America).

The inconsistency bugged me a bit, but I was happy to actually understand what was being said for once (I only know a little Mandarin, and it was butchered so badly that the only one I could make out was mei-mei).

Interestingly enough, Jayne's actor seemed to speak Mandarin a bit better than everyone else. In the DVD extras he talks about it a bit, and I assume he practiced it more.

Re:firefly

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

Whedon has also stated that no one hates Alien 4 more than he does. He had other people dictating what he was supposed to write.

The IMDb has an interesting trivia point about this, on the entry for Angel :

In the episode "Fredless", when talking about the Aliens series, a character says, "He's always had a thing for those 'Aliens' movies. Except for that last one they made - I think he dozed off." Series creator Joss Whedon wrote the script for Alien: Resurrection (1997), although it was heavily rewritten.

Re:firefly

[Udo Schmitz]

Whedon's shows are excellent... and also extremely expensive.

I always hear that, but noone ever gives any numbers? Did you pull that "fact" out of your ass, or can you give me any prove for that claim? I'm pretty sure any StarTrek show is far more expensive. Still the FX look worse. The planet sceneries sometimes look like in the classic series.

Re:firefly

[Udo Schmitz]

Whedon has also stated that no one hates Alien 4 more than he does.

Get his original script here.

Re:firefly

[Snaller]

Hopefully he's improved on his big-screen capabilities since the original Buffy and Alien 4. Ick

If you knew the background you would know that they are not him. He was just a little guy who should shut up then. In interviews he has pretty much indicated that Donald Sutherland was an arrogant prick who though he was gods gift to the universe and who readily changed the script ("Improved" it Sorbo style) (which is probably why he never accepted improvisation on the TV series), and the director didn't see it Joss's way either and wanted to improve it etc. Same thing with resurection:
"("I asked the director, "Can you just explain to me why he's doing this? Why is he going for this gun?" And the editor, who was French, turned to me and said, with a little leer on his face, [adopts gravelly, smarmy, French-accented voice] "Because eets een the screept." And I actually went and dented the bathroom stall with my puddly little fist. I have never been angrier. But it's the classic, "When something goes wrong, you assume the writers a dork. And that's painful."

But now, not only does he write, he also directs, and his buddy Chris Buchanan is one of the executive producers - I'd say its a safe bet that this time he has much more control. Of course not ultimate, because universal is paying and could demand scenes with half nake showgirls twirling their tassles - one can only hope they stay away and let Whedon win them that Oscar we know he is capable of :)

Re:firefly

[mbourgon]

All of this is actually touched on in the box set.

Touched on isn't the word I'd use. It's heavily talked about during both Serenity (the Pilot) & The Train Job. Joss certainly doesn't hold back during the commentary. Never has the "commentary may not reflect the studio's views" warning been more apt.

Re:firefly

[jafac]

There's also the circulating conspiracy-theory that "sci-fi shows in general, are under the gun, because, demographically, their viewers are more likely to watch on a commercial-skipping PVR."

They're being repaced with cheaper sitcoms, or reality shows.

Good riddance, I say. The McDonaldization of science fiction entertainment has been a mixed bag. I'd rather be honest and pay for DVD sets, and fill my bookcase with them, and my spare time watching them. Fewer episodes of greater quality, perhaps not constrained by the limitations imposed by the 1-hour TV show format (commercial breaks - Monster Of The Week - 22 episodes per year - milktoast politically correct inoffensive content, etc).

Then I could cancel my cable entirely.

It was said that Tivo was going to eventually destroy television as we know it. Maybe to be replaced by something better.

Re:firefly

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember reading just the opposite: that Firefly was being produced on a relative shoestring. And to me, the sets generally looked like someone was doing a good job with very little money - making good use of the plain grey industrial texture of the ship interiors, for instance.

The CGI was pretty good, but not expensive-looking (which is as it should be - when I notice the cool nifty CGI, it's not doing its job). Mostly it made good use of the pseudo-handheld cam idea (also seen more recently in BG2003 - I've heard it first appeared in Space: Above and Beyond). That allows you to skimp on expensive (and often pointless) detail and make up for it in convincing motion. Some people hate that effect, of course, but it worked for me.

And of course they saved money on sound effects in the space scenes (thus gaining dramatic tension for free). ;) All in all, it had the character of a film school project done exceedingly well on a medium-low budget. Which is probably why I liked it. So the question might be whether the film, with an undoubtedly bigger budget, will be able to maintain that feeling.

(Stargate is another series that looks a lot more expensive than it really is, and one which I like in a manner similar to Firefly).

Strange.

[nefele]

So they actually decided to make a movie about a web browser?
Oh, wait...

Obligatory.

[Trejkaz]

Serenity Now!!

Re:Obligatory.

[anagama]

I'm sure I'm not the only one. I'll be driving around and the theme song comes into my mind - "burn the land, boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me ..." It's going to be great to hear this in a theater rather than from my TV or computer speakers. Still, I agree w/ posters below, a series would be much more satisfying.

Re:Obligatory.

[TheLoneDanger]

Full opening theme lyrics:

Take my love, take my land,
Take me where I can not stand.
I don't care, I'm still free;
You can't take the sky from me.

Take me out to the black,
Tell them I ain't coming back.
Burn the land and boil the sea;
You can't take the sky from me.

There's no place I can be,
Since I've found Serenity.
But you can't take the sky from me.

Curse of the F's

[KoopaTroopa]

They're really naming it Serenity to avoid being prematurely cut off during production. This would surely have happened had the name started with 'F'.

Firefly - cancelled
Family Guy - cancelled
Futurama - cancelled

Someone ought to cancel Fox.

Re:Curse of the F's

[anagama]

Farscape

I don't what network it was on (DVD watcher myself), but it is also an unfair F cut.

Re:Curse of the F's

[Boing]

Never saw it myself, but a lot of people would be mad that you forgot "Freaks and Geeks".

Re:Curse of the F's

[st0rmshad0w]

And when you finish with 'F's lets move on to 'G'.

I'll start: G Vs E (aka Good Vs Evil)

oh screw it all, and bring back Brimstone. Why John Glover wasn't tapped to play the first of the fallen in the atrocity know as "Constantine" I'll never understand.

So i'm veering off topic, sue me. I'm just thankful they didn't call CSI something like "Forensic Investigators"

Re:Curse of the F's

[ajs]

Well, to be fair, Firefly got half a season where the other two you mentioned went quite a lot longer. Family Guy got 3 seasons and Futurama a full 5! Getting pulled off the air after 5 seasons may be dissapointing to fans, but it's a good run by any realistic measure, and most shows don't go 3 seasons for that matter.

Re:Curse of the F's

[mashx]

Quick Googling, in case that was true, and it turned up this:

http://www.tvtome.com/FamilyGuy/

and this:

http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,13622,00.htm l?tnews

Could it be...?

Re:Curse of the F's

[GumboN]

Fmillenium
Flone Gunmen
Fjohn Doe
Fdark Angel
The Ftick...
----

New Series

[bsharitt]

While a movie would be nice, I would rather have the series returen. Firefly was one of the few shows I've watched that I really like and made it a point to watch, instead of just watching it if it was on like most other shows.

Re:New Series

[blincoln]

While a movie would be nice, I would rather have the series returen.

Allegedly Whedon's plan is to use a successful film as a springboard for a follow-up series.

I would be happy with him either keeping it in theatres or switching back to TV, as long as he gets to finish the story one way or another.

Also, is it me, or is this "press release" more of a series of writer's notes?

To that end, he said he went out of his way while penning the "Serenity" script to make sure that it is accessible to auds who never tuned into "Firefly."

"Auds"? Obviously this is short for "audience," but still. Let's move on.

Series was a space oater set 500 years in the future, tracking the journeys of the crew aboard the Serenity.

Ah yes, a "space oater." I'm fond of those.

Chris Buchanan of Mutant Enemy, Whedon's shingle, and Mendel exec Alissa Tager are exec producing.

"Whedon's shingle," uh huh...

Re:New Series

[prockcore]

I would rather have the series returen

Joss Whedon should call up USA. With Monk and Dead Zone it's obvious that USA isn't afraid to back a strange-yet-brilliant show.

Or maybe FX (Nip Tuck, The Shield) or Bravo (Keen Eddie, Touching Evil).

Cable is really the only place you can find good shows that don't dumb down to the common denominator.

Fox is just stupid. How much money are they making from the Firefly dvds and Family Guy dvds? Compare that with how much money you would expect an any reality TV DVD to make.

In a couple of years, fox is going to have to reach all the way back to In Living Colour in order to make DVD sales... because no one wants to buy anything that they currently air.

Re:New Series

[steeef]

"Auds"? Obviously this is short for "audience," but still. Let's move on.

Variety seems to love these abbreviations. Nick Nunziata of CHUD sums it up:

For those not invested in Variety's ass injuring dialect, re-skedding and distribs are slightly quicker ways to say rescheduling and distributors. I can only imagine these folks in the bedroom saying "Honey, thank God I circummed my 'nis or you'd not know the face of Baldhammer(TM)". Annoying.

Re:New Series

[Platinum Dragon]

Can someone point out what was especially good about it? I'll grant without having seen more than half an episode that it was better than Enterprise or any other show in the genre on tv currently, but that's not saying much.

I'll take a shot at this one. I've been catching the episodes on Canada's SPACE channel, and to me the series definitely had a fairly solid setting and mood in its first season, which is rare for a sci-fi series.

The show fuses sci-fi space conventions with Wild West-era characters and environments. The whole "space Western" thing is not subtle, but that might actually be a good thing. I've found that when sci-fi producers try to be "subtle", their works ends up coming across as obvious and pretentious, like the ST:TNG episodes that tried to disguise the contemporary parallels, then beat you over the head with The Contemporary Moral Message. The Western aspects aren't taken so far as to be implausibly anachronistic; the six-shooters and shotguns seem to fire some kind of directed energy instead of projectiles, and there is still advanced technology. It just so happens the super-cool machines have some rust and loose screws, which only adds to the plausibility. I still have some trouble conceiving of just what volume of space the series takes place within, but then again, technobabble is kept at a minimum, which is a plus.

What little CGI I really took notice of looked pretty darn good, which isn't difficult to do nowadays--but then, compare Firefly to Babylon 5's first season and a half, and Starhunter. Also, there is no sound in space scenes. This threw me at first, but it's also accurate. For all the lack of adherence to anything resembling physics and scientific accuracy, I found this to be a nice touch.

Firefly worked really well in a contained-episode format, instead of the plot arcs that damn near everyone tries to shoehorn into shows now. Thing is, Whedon has shown a tendency to start with just such a pure episode format, then eventually move the series into multi-episode or even full-season arcs. This makes the short life of the series even rougher, because the creative team didn't even have a chance to really go places with the show.

Incidentally, J. Michael Straczynski's Crusade series died under similar conflicts with its network (demands for more sex and violence, episode juggling harming continuity), and it appeared to be developing in a similar fashion. JMS had the pressure of following up Babylon 5 with an expected second strong effort right from the start. When TNT demanded new episodes be shot and aired before the originally-shot episodes could see airtime, there was little chance the series' potential would be realized early on, or allowed to develop.

I wonder how amazing Firefly could have been in further seasons, given time to settle in. I say it again, the series felt quite well-realized for a first-season sci-fi program, and it got cut off at the knees by a network known more for trashy "reality" TV and amusing cartoons than fantasy and science fiction.

Re:New Series

[Chris Carollo]

Universal Stuidos are owned by GE, who in turn owns The Sci-Fi Channel. So that's probably the most likely place if Firefly is to make a return to TV.

Re:New Series

[Ray Radlein]

Yeah, but Monk and Dead Zone and Nip/Tuck and The Shield and the like absolutely have to have significantly lower per-episode costs than Firefly had.

Cable markets have even more trouble supporting effects-heavy science fiction than networks do. The only reason Farscape and Lexx ever worked financially for the Sci-Fi Channel were because they were filmed abroad (Australia and Canada, respectively) and also sold into numerous foreign markets, both of which helped lower the network's outlay.

If Firefly were to wind up on USA Network, you could look forward to a lot of episodes set planetside on dusty frontier worlds (like "Jaynestown"), or set entirely inside Serenity, with few guest stars and few exterior FX shots (like "Objects in Space").


Which isn't to say that Joss couldn't make it work despite all that, of course. He is, after all, Joss.

Re:New Series

[B3ryllium]

GE also owns NBC ... I think Firefly would make an excellent lead-in to ER, because of the story arcs involved in each show. Thursday nights ... the writer's plaything.

We will rule over all this land, and we will call it ... this land!

Re:New Series

[Chris Mattern]

> "Auds"? Obviously this is short for "audience," but still. Let's move on.
...
> Ah yes, a "space oater." I'm fond of those.
...
> "Whedon's shingle," uh huh...

o/~Normal talk makes producers walk/You might as well speak Greek/Unless you learn to talk that Variety Speak (Baba-doo-ba, baba-doo-ba...)o/~

Chris Mattern

Re:New Series

[ShinyBrowncoat]

Can someone point out what was especially good about it?

Although fans have all sorts of reasons for loving this show, I think it boils down to excellent, convention-defying writing, a great cast with amazing chemistry from the first scene, and seamless transitions between entertaining action, riveting drama, and ROTFLMAO humor/comedy all within one 45 minute episode. Check out episodes like 'Our Mrs. Reynolds' our 'Out of Gas' for the best examples of this. Oh, and downloads of the TV eps are available here, but only for a short while longer, so get them while you can!

Re:New Series

[fenix down]

But at the same time, ME journals don't usually hire retarded 1920s Jazz band promoters that have somehow gotten themselves addicted to crack to come up with their jargon. Hey, the auds like the space oater from Whedon's shingle? That's just ducky, daddy-o, now where's the giggle water, I wanna get blotto before we blow this joint!

Re:New Series

[llefler]

Also, is it me, or is this "press release" more of a series of writer's notes?

You missed a couple....

Pic, budgeted in the mid-eight figures, is skedded for a June start and should be ready for a 2005 release.

Apparently grammer is a lost art. 'skedded'?

speaking with other nets and cablers about the skein

Ok, I have no idea what the thought is here. Are you sure this wasn't written in chinese and run through a google translator?

U acquired the feature rights from Fox last fall.

Good news, apparently I have acquired the feature rights, so there should definately be a movie.

It's a sad, sad day for journalism.

Why do I get the feeling....

[ImTwoSlick]

... that they like to cancel great TV shows, just to make a few extra bucks on a movie they know people have been dying to see.

Re:Why do I get the feeling....

[Ondo]

... that they like to cancel great TV shows, just to make a few extra bucks on a movie they know people have been dying to see.

That is clearly not the case. Fox cancelled the TV show. Universal will be making the bucks on the movie. Possibly Fox got some money from Universal for the rights, but that's all Fox will ever get.

Thanks to Firefly...

[devphil]

...I am terrified of people in business suits wearing bright blue gloves.

On the up side, I know now how to say "Fuck everyone in the universe to death!", "Shut up," and my favorite, "Holy mother of God and all her wacky nephews!" in Mandarin Chinese.

Re:Thanks to Firefly...

[droleary]

You misspelled 'mispronounce'... ;)

Nah, the real typo was in "Mandarin Chinese". It should have been either "Space Mandarin" or "Future Chinese". To pretend we know how a language will be pronounced in 500 years is silly. Every heard Old English? Woof!

Serenity?

[Daetrin]

I hope they're referencing the ship and not the battle the ship was named for. If it's the battle we'll miss out on most of our favorite characters :(

Re:Serenity?

[eatenn]

All the characters from the TV series are signed on for the movie, though the article neglects to mention the characters of Book and Wash.

No worries though, the actors have hinted at being committed to the movie long before this was made official.

Re:Serenity?

[Chris Carollo]

Alan Tudyk, who plays Wash, reportedly stole the Big Red Button that was used during the episode "Out of Gas", and left it with Joss, telling him to "hit it when his miracle arrived" and they would all return.

Re:Can't Wait

[Ralph Wiggam]

IIRC, BraveStarr involved space-age stuff but was set in a western, Earth-based setting. Didn't the action figures have some cool electronic abilities? Was that the cartoon with "Eyes of the hawk, ears of the wolf, stregth of the bear...speed of the puma"?

-B

At lest they tried

[Anonymous Coward]

Fox is one of the few networks that at least gives shows like these a shot. Think about it.

Re:At lest they tried

[KoopaTroopa]

Y'know, that same thought has occurred to me before. I don't watch much TV, and I find myself buying/borrowing/renting DVD sets of the few shows that I actually watch. Turns out a great number of them either air(ed) on Fox or are Fox properties. They greenlight stuff that I like! It just burns me up that they preempt these shows to death and subsequently cancel them after they give them a chance.

Perhaps the right hand doesn't agree with the left.

Go Browncoats!

[torgosan]

Shiny!

won't be that great as movie

[Anonymous Coward]

The movie won't be able to depend on knowledge of the TV series because there isn't a large enough fanbase. That means they will have to condense a lot into 90 minutes. Firefly is so good because of the time allowed to develop the characters in a TV series. So while non-fans may have some visual effect treats and see SOME of the flavor of the show, it won't be able to touch the series; and fans will be disappointed because the movie will have to be introductory and won't pick up where the show left off.

TV show movies that do well are those that ran a long time and therefor have a large fanbase.

This will just be another scifi movie.

Re:won't be that great as movie

[eatenn]

Joss Whedon has turned the town of Sunnydale into a giant musical (Once More, With Feeling), he has taken away the ability for his characters to talk (Hush), and recently he has turned a centuries old vampire-with-a-soul into a felt puppet (Smile Time)... all of it pure comedy.

I think the guy deserves the benefit of the doubt ;)

Re:won't be that great as movie

[tmhsiao]

Actually, "Smile Time" was the brainchild of Ben Edlund, creator of The Tick.

AWESOME

[Cirrius]

I recently picked up the box set to check out the series, and this is great news...I was surprised how good the series was and perplexed as to why such a show was canceled.

Don't Wander Around Best Buy

[Ralph Wiggam]

Seeing the article made me want to buy the DVD set. I liked the concept of the show a lot, but didn't catch many of them. In Star Trek, everyone has neatly groomed hair and they're always nice to each other. Firefly seemed to be about normal, flawed people who happen to fly around in space.

Anyway, I go to BestBuy.com to see how much it costs. Only 40 bucks is a good deal. Here's the messed up part. On the web site, and presumably on the store shelves, the Firefly DVD set is listed under "Horror". Their subgroups under horror are "Comedies, Occult, Vampires, Zombies, and General Horror". At least it's not under Zombies.

-B

Converts after cancellation

[loftydog]

Fox did everything it could to kill this show.

First, they aired the episodes in a random order so there was no continuity

Second, they changed the time it was aired, then changed the day, all within a span of three weeks

Third, and most insulting, is that they assumed the demographic watching Firefly would switch to watching Fastlane, as some of the numbers from Nielson were similar

Sadly, I've had more people become "fans" of the show after the cancellattion by loaning them the DVDs, with most of them not being scifi fans.

Re:Converts after cancellation

[thegrommit]

Fox did everything it could to kill this show.

I think the problem was that Fox didn't know what to do with it.

Anyhow, Universal is backing the film - not Fox.

Re:Converts after cancellation

[gmhowell]

If Fox didn't know what to do with it, they shouldn't have screwed around with it. They should have shown the pilot as the pilot. They should have shown the episodes in order, etc.

No, Fox *thought* they knew what to do, but obviously didn't.

Cast announced

[__aaaehb3101]

I don't see Ron Glass("the shepard") listed in the returning cast list. I wonder what is going on there? While not my favourite character, the shepard seems to have a more shady past than any.
from the press release:

...The Serenity cast will include such returning "Firefly" cast members as Nathan Fillion as Captain Malcolm 'Mal' Reynolds, Gina Torres as Zoe Warren, Morena Baccarin as Inara Serra, Jewel Staite as Kaylee Frye, Adam Baldwin as Jayne Cobb, Sean Maher as Dr. Simon Tam and Summer Glau as River Tam.

Maybe we'll get to see Jewel Saite naked...

[runlvl0]

I recently picked up the box set to check out the series, and this is great news...I was surprised how good the series was and perplexed as to why such a show was canceled.

Because you didn't watch it on TV?

Re:Maybe we'll get to see Jewel Saite naked...

[TheLoneDanger]

Hopefully some mods will see the parent post. Fox didn't make it easy to watch Firefly on TV even for diehard Whedon or sci-fi fans because they showed the episodes out of order and kept switching its timeslot.

In addition to this, I believe that the Nielsen system is broken. I believe that there are 5000 Nielsen households, and that these are supposed to roughly correlate to population distribution. But over and over we see shows that get cancelled even with large numbers of fans complaining, along with some shows that no one cares enough to complain about. Firefly fans did crazy stuff like take out full page ads thanking the studios and each advertiser for the show by name, and mailing stuff to sponsors and studio heads.

Maybe we need more geeks to try to be Nielsen viewers? How does a family become a Nielsen household? (I'm Canadian so I can't do it anyway, but I hate watching shows I like get cancelled.)

Re:Maybe we'll get to see Jewel Saite naked...

[gmhowell]

It aired on broadcast television. About 75% of the citizens of the US can get broadcast television without the use of anything more technological than a piece of speaker cord hooked to an antenna balun. I did it for two years in college, and was far from the only person to do this.

Re:Maybe we'll get to see Jewel Saite naked...

[Sir0x0]

I believe that the Nielsen system is broken.

You're not alone: Here's an interesting rant on the topic
Has some hard facts, and some informed opinions on the flaws of the system.

Re:WTF

[eatenn]

Cancel a television series to make a movie based on it?

I know, isn't that crazy? Next thing you know they'll be making a television series out of a box office flop.

Oh wait...

Josh Whedon the genius..

[GonzoTech]

Josh Whedon is a genius. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly were all wonderful shows. Firefly and Angel were both cancelled way to early.. but especially Firefly. Only one season? I guess Americans are too hung up on shows like Fear Factor, Survivor, American Idol, and any other show that uses very childish antics to develop a fan base. I for one hope that Josh Whedon will continue with wonderful writing, concepts, and work - maybe people will catch on and see what we have seen for years (A brilliant mind in an industry full of flakes.)

Re:Josh Whedon the genius..

[tmhsiao]

Psst. His name is spelled "Joss."

Re:Josh Whedon the genius..

[TheLoneDanger]

Firefly got less than a season. Just 11 episodes aired, even though they finished filming 14. Besides that they showed the episodes out of order and bounced it around the schedule. That shows a lot of dedication to running a show into the ground.

Re:Josh Whedon the genius..

[Kaboom13]

Survivor and the other realisty shows have suceeded mainly because they are dirt cheap to make. Survivor deserves some credit for being a halfway original idea (I've never watched an entire episode) so when it got big they made money hand over fist, thus the spawn of reality shows. I've never met a person who actually claimed to be a big fan, the pople who do watch them seem to just because there's a lack of anything better. Tv is all about money, not viewer satisfaction.

Unfair mods

[anagama]

I'd cure this if I hadn't already posted. For those who don't know, in Firefly, "Shiny" was sometimes used as slang for "good". So whoever modded this offtopic, is some kind of knucklehead who never saw the show.

Kaylee...

[MachDelta]

Ah yes... Kaylee Frye. Every geek and tinkerers dream girl.

C'mon guys, admit it. That's the only reason anyone really watched the show. ;)

Re:Kaylee...

[brandonY]

Yeah, she was amazingly hot. On the DVD, they point out that Whedon, in his infinite wisdom, told her that she could be on the show, but she would have to gain 20 pounds so she would look like a real human. Bless the man.

Re:Kaylee...

[goodEvans]

Yeah. Morena Baccarin is classicly beautiful, so much so that even my wife can't take her eyes off her, but Kaylee just has that certain something...

Maybe it was the smudge of dirt on her nose, I just don't know.

Probably offtopic, but...

[JayBlalock]

Why is it there's going to be a Firefly film, but still no Babylon 5 movie?

Re:Probably offtopic, but...

[NOLAChief]

There are many TV shows that don't translate well to the big screen because there's nothing left to tell. The core story of B5 ran it's course through the TV series. JMS got to tell the story he wanted to tell and we enjoyed it. Everyone's happy.

As far as Firefly goes, it was killed in it's infancy, making nobody but the Fox suit lobbying for yet another inane reality show happy. Like JMS, there is a story Joss Whedon desperately wants to tell (though I seriously doubt he had 5 seasons more or less planned in advance). This movie is an attempt at breathing life back into the project so that he might get a chance to finish telling his story.

Length?

[Cyno01]

Who said the movies gonna be 90 minutes. Thankfully hollywoods lengthening movies a bit on average latley. Cant remember last movie i saw in theaters that was shorter than two hours. Not that i expect much of the average american attention span, but the most sucessfull (imho) movies of the past 3 years have all been well over 3 hours. :p

Hallelujah!

[bbsguru]

The long months in the wilderness are at an end, brethren! And on the day I finished re-viewing the last of the DVD extras for the umpteenth time!

This is great news. Note that it is Universal now, not Fox, so there really could be another series at the end of the trail here.

Since the DVD set came out, I have introduced the series to a dozen 'Fly newbies, all of whom are as swept away as I was. It's just too fanastic a program to let it go, and no maybe (just maybe?) we won't have to.

Shiny!

Serenity?

[ShinyBrowncoat]

They are calling the movie 'Serenity'? Now what am I supposed to do with all these Firefly Movie posters?

"Blue Sun" rises?

[teneighty]

When you watch the movie, keep an eye out for a bigger role for the Blue Sun corporation. The series merely hinted at their role, but I think we can expect to see Blue Sun emerging as the bad guys, rather than the Alliance.

The hints? In the original episodes, watch at how River reacts to anything with the Blue Sun logo on it - Jayne's shirt, labels on cans, and so on.

Re:are people happy?

[ShinyBrowncoat]

this is the worst news every. this pretty much is the last nail in the coffin for the series. they're gonna wrap everything up for us fans and send us on our way!

Actually, no. Joss Whedon's original movie script did this, but after seeing the amazing DVD sales, the powers that be asked Joss to re-write the script to be 'more of a springboard to an eventual series return'...

You Forgot To Share!

[WombatControl]

I am not a native Chinese speaker (or even a remotely good Chinese speaker), but here's some tasty bits of Firefly Mandarin dialog:

Tai-kong suo-yo de shing-chiou doh sai-jin wu di pigu: Stuff all the planets in the universe up my ass!

Huh choo-shung huh tza-jiao duh!: Filthy fornicators of livestock!

Nee ta ma duh. Tyen-shia suo-yo duh run doh gai si! - F--- everyone in the universe to death!

Re:You Forgot To Share!

[torgosan]

Firefly Chinese-English Translations

Plot intro, and more info

[Namarrgon]

When Mal takes on two new passengers - a young doctor and his unstable, telepathic sister - he gets much more than he bargained for. The pair are fugitives from the coalition dominating the universe, who will stop at nothing to reclaim the girl. The crew that was once used to skimming the outskirts of the galaxy unnoticed find themselves caught between the unstoppable military force of the Universal Alliance and the horrific, cannibalistic fury of the Reavers, savages who roam the very edge of space. Hunted by vastly different enemies, they begin to discover that the greatest danger to them may be on board "Serenity" herself.

More info here.

He is the director this time

[Per Abrahamsen]

The Buffy movie has a very different feel than the series, which Joss claim is because the director had a different vision than Joss did.

Alien 4 feel a lot more like City of Lost Children than an Alien movie. Again, the directors influence. One other write with a Usenet presense (I believe it wa Peter A. David) claimed he got into Buffy by wathing Alien 4, and seeing a good script being burried behind a misunderstood direction, and got currios about the writer.

Titan AE was actually pretty good, but I don't know how much of Joss writting was involved. There was a couple of places that were clearly Joss though. The intelligent guard, and Planet Bob were Joss trademark humor.

This time Joss gets to both write and direct the movie according to the Variety article, so we will be able to judge directly his abilities as a movie maker. From the few Buffy episodes he has written and directed himself (like Hush and Once More With Feeling), I believe we are in for a treat.

Re:why does firefly have such a fanbase?

[harlows_monkeys]

Wheadon seems to not understand the enormous amounts of energy required for space travel, and moving livestock around is just not going to pay for it

You have absolutely no clue whatsoever how much energy would be required for such space travel, because in real life there is neither any theory nor any experiment that covers faster-than-light travel. Once your suspension of disbelief goes so far as to allow FTL, trying to do things like energy calculations is just silly.

You also have no clue at all what the value of livestock might be in an interstellar economy. If that livestock is key to allowing a colony to thrive on a planet, it could be very valuable.

And ancient projectile weapons? I'm sorry, my suspension of disbelief only goes so far

So you have no problem with FTL, which is something that is, as far as we know currently, impossible, but having some people using projectile weapons while others use more sophisticated weapons bothers you? Even though if you just look around on Earth, you can find societies that still use rocks and pointed sticks?

This is one of the things that Firefly got right that most other science fiction gets wrong--technology is too uniform in most science fiction. Based on a couple thousand years of Earth history, it is far more believable to have a wide range of technology.

The campaign to Save Angel

[The Lynxpro]

I'm placing this in here because most FireFly fans are probably also fans of Whedon's other program, Angel. As you know, the WB Network made the announcement that they will not be renewing Angel for the sixth season, despite its majorly improved ratings over last year and that its the #2 show on their network for the major 18-34 aged advertising demographic.

If you wish to help with the efforts to save the show, there are several websites coordinating fan activities, and I will list them here:

Petition Online:
Here's the petition protesting the cancellation of the program. Please sign it and join the 72,000 + other fans who already have...
http://www.petitiononline.com/ai5d0162/pe tition.ht ml

http://www.savingangel.org/
Saving Angel is placing ads in the Hollywood Reporter and Variety. You can find them here:

http://www.supportangel.org/
Support Angel has been coordinating a lot of the fan base postcard campaigns. They are a great source of information.

Some of the other information you'll find on the pages include the fact that Tribune Broadcasting itself (a 20% + shareholder in The WB Network) is encouraging fans to protest the cancellation. The WB wants to replace Angel either with a teen version of "Dark Shadows" or another revamp of "Lost in Space." It is reported that UPN has passed on picking up the show because they'd rather try to run their own version of "Teen Wolf" and borrowing heavily from the Buffy (Whedon) format to make it a success.

If you've been holding off on purchasing any of the Angel Season Sets on DVD, now is the time to purchase them; the networks ARE watching the sales figures. Remember, Fox decided to relaunch "Family Guy" after witnessing their sales success. And while UPN might have passed on picking up Angel for Season Six, we still have TNT, FX Network (fitting since Angel is a Twentieth-Century Fox production), SciFi, or even Tribune Broadcasting syndication to fall back upon!

Re:why does firefly have such a fanbase?

[Ray Radlein]

They use projectile weapons because projectile weapons are low maintenance items compared to Electronuclear Kill-O-Zap Rifles, which probably seize up the first time they get near a bit of dust. That's the way things always work.

Guess Mr. Glass will be in

[Udo Schmitz]

In a report about the Wolfram and Hart Revue a girl writes how she met Ron Glass: "I asked him about the movie (slated for 2005! Squee!), and he said he could not "officially" say that he was going to be in it. And then he smiled."

Re:Guess Mr. Glass will be in

[NeGz]

Hahah, have you seen him in the commentary and suchnot on the end of the Firefly DVDs? The man laughs/smiles at *anything.* I swear he's the real life version Dr. Hibbert from the simpsons.

I still hope he (and especially Alan Tudyk - he's hilarious) return though.

They didn't cancel it TO make a movie...

[AzrealAO]

Fox cancelled the show.

Joss Whedon tried to shop the show around to other networks trying to get it picked up, but was unsuccessful.

Decided to try and get a movie made, managed to get that green lighted.

Best hope is that the movie will be successful enough to give him more ammunition trying to get the show picked up for a second season.

Too right! See Gibson's Alien 3 Script...

[jonskerr]

Many a slip twixt the cup and the lip, as they say. I'm sorry I can't provide a link, but William Gibson wrote a GREAT script for Alien 3, which didn't get made as we know. It certainly used to be available online, surely is somewhere.