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Second Round of Serenity Screenings Sold Out

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the just-can't-wait dept.

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.'"

7 of 199 comments (clear)

  1. Man, Fox really dodged a bullet by blonde+rser · · Score: 5, Funny

    Good thing fox cancelled Firefly. There's clearly no public interest in that franchise.

    1. Re:Man, Fox really dodged a bullet by Sancho · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The question will be whether die-hard fans will be the ONLY ones who see the show when it gets a wide release. The show pretty clearly had a huge fanbase (given the record sales on Amazon and pre-screenings that sell out before they're announced) but even if every fan sees the movie once, it won't be enough to warrant a sequel if no one else sees it.

      I was lucky enough to attend one of the first 10 screenings. I think the film is good enough to make it on its own except for the character development. Firefly fans won't have a problem here, but with 9 characters to deal with, there just isn't enough time in a 2 hour movie to really introduce them all, much less give any real information about them which would let them shine. I hope this doesn't detract from the film for the general audience.

    2. Re:Man, Fox really dodged a bullet by furiousgeorge · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >>so if 5 million sets were sold, that's only $75 million.

      did anybody here pass economics? Ok... how about at least TOOK economics?

      There's a big difference between revenue and profit.

      Going from the math above, fox POSSIBLY brought in $75 million for the DVD's (that's not counting promotional costs, etc etc).

      Did the shows cost nothing to produce? 14 episodes of a SciFi show.... i would bet $5million an episode is a reasonable estimate. Thats $70 million in costs right there. Plus marketing, blah blah blah.

      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.

    3. Re:Man, Fox really dodged a bullet by Monkelectric · · Score: 5, Interesting
      well, that they killed it specifically as a marketing technique to sell DVDs?

      It is possible, and I like the way your conspiratorial mind works. However, they could have sold season 1 DVDs and still made a eason 2.

      The inside story is, that FireFly was the "baby" of an ousted executive. If FireFly did well then there would be all sorts of questions along the lines of "Why are were firing guys who are making hit shows?"

      The solution was well documented -- tank the show by showing them out of order, not advertising them, and then changing the show times so you couldn't catch them. I remember seeing the adverts on TV and going "that looks COOL!!" and then I couldn't find it.

      --

      Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley

  2. To the point. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "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.

  3. Quick Comment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Re:I'm going to be asked to turn in my geek badge. by kalidasa · · Score: 5, Informative

    "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.