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Second Round of Serenity Screenings Sold Out
j1ggl3x writes "From a Rotten Tomatoes news article:
'Following the sell-out success of the May 5th pre-screenings, creator Joss Whedon recently announced that more advance previews of his movie Serenity would appear at twenty theaters in twenty cities, this time on May 26th. By the next morning, well before the official list of cities was posted, fans on the Serenity movie site and elsewhere had diligently located half the listings through trial and error and several of the locations were already sold out. Serenity hits theaters on September 30th.'"
Serenity now!
FP
why ya actin like a ho!
I predict the film will do as well as Titan AE
Sold out??? Surely you meant, "Nothing for you to see here. Please move along." ???
Good thing fox cancelled Firefly. There's clearly no public interest in that franchise.
You clearly expected something intelligent fox to come up with.
This is news how? A movie sold out, BFD.
Interestingly, no tickets have been sold at all in Jamestown.
So has Fox dropped another franchise on its way to success? Are they going to pick the ball back up like they did with Family Guy?
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Several of the screenings sold out before they were even announced. Many enterprising Browncoats "hacked" the Fandango URL until they found the screenings.
"By the next morning, well before the official list of cities was posted, fans on the Serenity movie site and elsewhere had diligently located half the listings through trial and error and several of the locations were already sold out."
Ladies and Gentlemen. Now THOSE are fans.
...but who the hell is Joss Whedon, and what the hell is Serenity?
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
First post! In Soviet Russia, all your band camp are belong to us, you insensitive clod!
I, for one, welcome our new goatse overlords...
This really blows because people, like me, use a method of downloading TV shows via BitTorrent called broadcatching. I'm sure there are tons of people like me whose intention is not to do any harm to that particular show/network. I prefer downloading of TV shows because I cannot watch them when they air (usually). Though better solutions (Tivo) might exist, it is still super convenient for me to download TV shows (acutally my computer does it for me) and to watch them on the computer. Or I can quickly transfer them to my laptop and bring it to work/school with me. I can understand why the RIAA/MPAA might have a problem with people downloading music/movies, but it's television and it's broadcast all over the world -- for FREE. This is indeed another "scare" tactic. What's next, suing people for using BitTorrent all together? What about HTTP downloading? What about FTP? I can download my "warez" from those protocols too.
You guys need to get the idea out of your head that a highly devoted fanbase is the same as a large fanbase. Just because some rather limited amounts of seats sell out instantly doesn't mean the movie can't flop.
Joss Whedon - Creator of Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Angel.
Serenity - Feature length film based on Firefly, which Fox cancelled a couple of years ago.
"Serenity" - a forthcoming movie based upon Joss Whedon's television series *Firefly*, which was a near-hard SF show set about 400 years in the future after mankind had migrated to another star system. The show is about the crew of a ship, Serenity, that straddle the boundaries of legality (smuggling, but nothing bad; carrying fugitives from the big bad corporate government) and are mostly loyal to their captain, Mal, who is a veteran of the losing side in a civil war against the big bad corporate government. The show depicted two classes of worlds: high-tech core worlds, and low-tech "Western"-style frontier worlds. Joss Whedon wrote Alien: Resurrection, and created Buffy the Vampire Slayer (both movie and tv show), Angel, and a few other things.
For the second damn time, I found out about preview screenings off of slashdot, way after the fact. Well, now I've bookmarked the page just in case they add Houston.
Dang, this is popular!
They should make a TV show out of it or something...
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
And is he proud of creating Crap, Teen Crap, More Teen Crap, and a few other things?
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"Networks are in the "Make Money" business. Fox and a number of other networks now make more off the DVD sales on a series than on the broadcast of the series."
Guess that explains the MPAA lawsuits, even though TV is worldwide and FREE.
google it, you dumass
This stuff has been mentioned on slashdot.
I've never heard of this.
I asked some friends on irc and they said this was some series directed or created or something by same dude who did buffy vampire or some other lame TV show.
How the fuck is this news?
How is this news for NERDS, I've never heard of this junk.
And since this is the 3rd time this shit is getting posted here... Wtf, who's getting paid?
Cancel EVERY series after 13 episodes!
Keeps production costs down, improving margin on later DVD sales!
I want to know if I should be pi**ed or not about missing out. And on what site are the screenings announced? I didn't see it at the rottentomatoes site linked in the article.
Were mixed. Die hard Whedon fans loved the movie, while those who had no clue about him or the series (a decided minority in the screenings) didn't like the movie, beefs being too many characters and confusing plot lines, unlikeable characters.
... Universal (Fox passed on the project) can soak the true believers but good on DVD sales where the real money is. Price em at say $40 per and yeah, no one but the hard core will buy but I suspect that's the case anyway.
I'm sure hard core fans will show up; if there's only two million of them that's not much box office.
However
Saw the preview for the movie and did not look good. Kept flogging the TV show which to me screams it doesn't stand on its own as a movie.
My own take is that Whedon's a cult figure like John Waters. Nothing wrong with that but I don't think his movie will find wide acceptance.
are up to over $250 dollars for a pair for the DC show.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Clean For the next to happen. My
Fox couldn't stand having themselves portrayed as the baddies.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Serenity is a movie based on the Firefly TV show which is this year's hipster "western but in space" based science fiction series.
He's the ass-clown who wrote Alien Ressurection. He's frequently described as a "genius" by his fans, who clearly are crippled by mental illness.
Saw your mommy today??
The US stock market plunged. So did my pants when I saw your mom. Here am I waving my dongle in your mommy's face. See you there?
Great warriors - resurrecting dead civilizations for now/until forever. Listen to that robbIE?
Eh0d gives you free!!! lessons in economy. Supply is down because demand is up?? lets fuck. PLEASE!!
A friend of mine hounded me forever to watch Firefly on disc, and I just couldn't get into it at all. Whedon's good name hold absolutely no water with me ( vampires? sorry. Alien Resurrection? puke.), and I was actually turned off by the whole western motif. The only redeeming factor (imo) was falling out of my chair laughing when the bad guys uniforms looked exactly like Spaceballs. My friend was stunned, as I'm sure most here would be, but I actually would rather watch *any* Star Trek (/me dodges rotten cabbage)....even Voyager (/me dodges multiple large rocks).
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
"near-hard SF"? It seems to me that Firefly places little emphasis on the hard science aspects of SF and rather emphasizes character interactions.
Am I missing something?
It's also important to point out that Firefly, like Joss's better work, was a "serial," in that later episodes depended upon previous episodes to make any sense. Unfortunately, and dumfoundingly, Fox decided to air the series out-of-order, which led to the complaints that Firefly was "confusing" and "impossible to follow."
In other words, Fox blew their own series because they didn't know what they were doing.
It's also a space western, which is a pretty tough theme to like, but somehow managed to capture the essence of what worked with the episodes of Star Trek that worked. Even though pretty much none of the characters are good guys (the captain kills people who he thinks deserves it, the crew members betray eachother for money, the pilot keeps wearing Hawaiian shirts), they're somehow likable in a bad guy way... Sort of like Han before Lucas bastardized him into a saturday morning cartoon. The old-west themes of cattle rustling and smuggling just add to the charm and the outlaw atmosphere. It was a pretty good step, in other words, to reduce what will likely be a nastily complicated future involving DRM, standards compliances, interoperability problems, technological glitches, and complicated social procedures based upon years of snowballing bureaucracy to something archaically approachable focused more on characters. Not once in the entire 12 episodes was there a spot of technobabble or an episode focused upon getting the holodeck to work. It was all about the characters, which really shined through on the DVD's.
It was good, but Fox blew their chance by thinking that it was The Simpsons. Hopefully the movie will rectify this to some degree. And if the movie does well, they can replay the TV shows. Most people haven't seen them anyway.
The ______ Agenda
What about Canada, eh?
Joss, if you bring the movie here early then we will gladly give you some bacon and beer. Think about it and get back to me.
For someone who hasn't seen any of the episodes, what's the attraction? I don't have a TV but see quite a few movies at the theatre, what is it about this scifi series that's so appealing?
Hard SF in the sense that it does not involve supar-time-travel-magic, aliens, phasers, automagical healing, or other standard sci-fi stuff.
Even the reavers or WTF ever they are called are just mentally warped humans
Says it all, for me.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
So... who has the future *DVD* rights? Fox has what's out there, but do they have a lock on anything series-related in other mediums?
What's to stop Joss/Universal/whoever getting Nathan & the crew back for a couple more "seasons" released direct to DVD?
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
"i thought they just liked explosions and sex."
Or maybe just explosive sex.
is Firefly based off a book? comic book? something else? or is it one of Joss Wheydon's own creation and the first medium was a tv series followed by now a movie.
I was just curious if the movie actually develops the story or is it a side story that doesn't have to deal much with the main storyline (meaning that one can watch the series and future series w/o watching the movie).
I'm personally a big FireFly fan and also a big anime fan, but I've been disappointed by anime movies once too often. Anime companies try to squeeze as much money out as possible from a successful anime series by creating movies and what ends up happening is a bad story that doesn't fit anywhere on the storyline. As many of you may know, anime series are usually base off of a manga series, but an anime movie usually is a storyline developed not by the original manga author.
What I'm saying is I hope that Serenity's storyline fits with the rest of the story and isn't just some random story made up just for a movie where the series can do without.
HD Trailers
Ugh! I can't believe I missed a second opportunity.
mod -1 redundant
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
But look at how slowly the reaver ship and Serenity passed each other (travelling in almost opposite directions) in the first episode (or the last episode if you are a Fox scheduling wizard).
Travelling that slowly in space is not "hard SF", but of course it's dramatic (but that could have been achieved by having the ships travelling in almost the same direction and hence taking a long time to pass each other).
Amen!
Joss disocvered that if you combine angsty/whiny dialogue with actors who can angrily stare at a camera lens you can pretend you have something well written, granted in this world of $300 million B-movies it probably does seem to stand above the rest, but in the end we just have another Roger Corman, applying the same equasion over and over and over-and-over...
Yes the DVD has been a hit. In numbers. But you can't say it made fox a fortune. It more than likely is just covering the costs that the show LOST during its run.
The show lost no money to Fox. Fox choose to pay for production, and then did not air it. Or aired it at exotic times in the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. I'm wondering if did better or worse than the test pattern or the infomercial on the other channels. Since no one knew in advance it would be on at that time, how could anyone see it?
You can't take the sky from me...
(there are currently talks of having it be a trilogy)
To be fair, that is a trend in Hollywood right now. They all want to have the next magic money making trilogy, so they get all the actors to sign for 3 movies. If the first one is a phenomenal sucess: they make 2 more.
You can't take the sky from me...
No no no, we don't blame you: We blame Fox.
However, your geek badge is under review should you choose NOT to watch all the DVDs in less than a week: as per regular first-viewing habits.
You can't take the sky from me...
If I recall correctly, ol' Joss makes the same point in the commentary for that episode.
Shouldn't Aaron Spelling be credited with that discovery? Kevin Smith added New Jersey and Stan Lee. The other Kevin added hicks. And Joss did it with metro-sexualized mythology.
Joss Whedon reported that the tickets would probably go on sale the following day. By 10am PST some services began selling tickets and were sold out within 10-15 minutes. By noon on the same day, 15 venues had sold out and an hour or two later, the entire 20 venues were sold out. Not the following morning. Within 30 minutes of the venues going up for sale, Ebay scalpers had already posted lots of 1 to 10 tickets for sale.
In other words, yet another Star Trek / B5 wannabe.
It's also a space western, which is a pretty tough theme to like, ... The old-west themes of cattle rustling and smuggling just add to the charm and the outlaw atmosphere.
I picked up the season 1 DVD recently based on recommendations (plus it was on special and I had enjoyed Buffy & Angel!). I really really liked it, the characters, humour, SFX, plots are great. But it took a few shows to get into and I have to admit that my very first impressions were that it was not as good as everyone said. The only off-putting factor for me was that whole wild-west-meets-space theme, and I just never got completely used to it and I can't say why, but I suspect it will put joe public off much more ("cowboys in space - how stupid!". Too much wild west and not enough space for my liking, but then I can see that if it was toned down there would be comparisons made to Star Wars (Mos Eisley) so it's a bit of a catch-22.
"Because it's there." - George Mallory, when asked why he wanted to climb Mt Everest, March 18, 1923 (New York Times)
the general film audience likes character development?
i thought they just liked explosions and sex.
Rick Berman? Is that you? Tell us more of this great wisdom about how to pummel a science fiction franchise into the ground.
you know you are broken when you get up early to watch more the following morning. of course, doing it this way means you are devasted when you reach the end and there's no more.
Did I, or did I not, say "NEAR-hard SF"? ? ? :-) I think this is as hard as we're going to get in a popular TV show. For comparison, take a classic hard-SF novel like *Mission of Gravity* - the story doesn't depict, but does require, FTL.
Anyone else think that having preview screenings in May for a film with a September release date is a bit insane? Why do it almost 5 months before it's released?
Yup...
"Joss Whedon wrote Alien: Resurrection"
:-p
Way to recommend it, dude...
James
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
It's also important to point out that Firefly, like Joss's better work, was a "serial," in that later episodes depended upon previous episodes to make any sense. Unfortunately, and dumfoundingly, Fox decided to air the series out-of-order, which led to the complaints that Firefly was "confusing" and "impossible to follow."
Are US networks actually geared up to show serials. The paradigm of "show some episodes, repeat some episodes, show some more episodes" appears to be the norm.
In other words, Fox blew their own series because they didn't know what they were doing.
Not exactly news.
It's also a space western, which is a pretty tough theme to like, but somehow managed to capture the essence of what worked with the episodes of Star Trek that worked. Even though pretty much none of the characters are good guys (the captain kills people who he thinks deserves it, the crew members betray eachother for money, the pilot keeps wearing Hawaiian shirts), they're somehow likable in a bad guy way... Sort of like Han before Lucas bastardized him into a saturday morning cartoon.
Another influence would probably "Blake's 7".
Funny, I had the exact opposite impression. It was love at first sight for me and I thought it was even BETTER than everyone had said (if that's possible). It played to me like Star Wars if Lucas had realized his ideas were laughably rediculous and ran with it. But after watching the whole thing, it didn't quite hold up to the promise of the first few episodes. The repetitive 'big gun fight, one of the crew members is shot, but they're perfectly fine again at the start of the next episode' thing happened over and over, and started to feel really tired.
The only off-putting factor for me was that whole wild-west-meets-space theme
That's my favorite part, but then I'm a big fan of Sergio Leone style silliness.
Are US networks actually geared up to show serials. The paradigm of "show some episodes, repeat some episodes, show some more episodes" appears to be the norm.
True, but other options are possible. Fox has done pretty well with 24. I've only seen episodes in order, but I can't imagine it would make any sense at all if you shuffled them.
The killing I can deal with... Betrayal for money I can cope with... But dude, those Hawaiian shirts just crossed the line.
http://liquidben.com - Aspiring to an 'under construction' gif
you can get all the details at serenity.com.
:)
If "Serenity" is good, and there's no reason to think it won't be, why not create some buzz and pay for the screenings at the same time? The distributors know that the rabid fans will pay to see this movie early, and they're hoping that they'll tell all their friends about it. If you can create a buzz going into summer, people will look forward to it even while being bomabrded with the usual summer blockbusters.
I think this is a brilliant move on the distributor's part, and I hope they have a few more between now and September to keep the buzz going.
Private Parts lost money?! You must be stoned. According to this, Private Parts cost $28 million to make. The domestic box office was $41 million, which is pretty respectable for is essentially a bio-pic. And this does not include any VHS/DVD sales and rentals.
http://www.cantstopthesignal.com/ least i know where to look if they do another.
Fox blew their own series because they didn't know what they were doing.
Like someone mentioned above, it could either be superhuman incompetance, or some executive war where one was bright and produced a good show, and the other was cunning and got it on the random shifting time slot of death. In other words: Petty sabotage.
the pilot keeps wearing Hawaiian shirts
I wonder if he comes from a core planet of hawaiian shirt people and he got the frontiere job to show off his piloting skills in a less regulated and constricting environment than his tropical home.
If you look at him in "out of gas", he seems the most bothered by the cold.
You can't take the sky from me...
Anyone else think that having preview screenings in May for a film with a September release date is a bit insane? Why do it almost 5 months before it's released?
It was supposed to be released in late march.
But their producer's marketing department got wind of how much Lucas was putting in his promos and they decided that there was no way they could compete with his advertising, so they pushed it back.
You can't take the sky from me...
WHY - WHY - WHY - WHY - WHY does Slashdot insist on posting stories with absolutely no context in the summaries? I had no clue what Firefly or Serenity even was until I started reading posts. Hello, everyone hasn't been waiting in anticipation for this show or it wouldn't have been cancelled.
How about you editors start using the story summaries to SUMMARIZE, instead of just posting obscure references like Slashdot is a personal blog? We're not your roommates.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Dude. http://www.imdb.com/ is your friend. Seriously.
The most important thing to note here is that unlike Han Solo, Mal will always shoot first.
I'm surprised that nobody in this thread has compared this show to a similarly-themed (and similarly excellent) anime called Cowboy Bebop. Although the stories branch off in major ways at certain spots, when i watched the first few episodes of Firefly i couldn't help but automatically be reminded of CB. If Whedon did use Bebop as an inspiration, though (which is possible, since it came out first), it was nothing more than that -- inspiration. Firefly on its own is amazingly written and executed.
My favorite episode is Jaynestown. But i'd have to say my favorite character is Jayne.. so no surprise there. I actually got a little teary-eyed at the end there. And that just doesn't happen to me -- ever -- let alone with something published by Fox. The last time i got all misty in any show was in a particular Scryed (s.CRY.ed) episode. And that wasn't in America.
I need some Serenity, goddammit.
It also has mind reading psychic powers, pushing it for "near".
Of course firefly clearly wasn't a "popular TV show" anyway, since it got canned in the first season and Fox didn't even bother showing all the episodes they did make...
FTL doesn't rule something out for being "hard scifi" especially if it handles the time travel that current theories tend to predict as going hand in hand with it.