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Whedon Calls Death Knell For Firefly
Ant writes "Entertainment Weekly is reporting on the end of Firefly." From the article: "Alas, Whedon's fond memories are also tainted by Serenity's status as a franchise nonstarter; despite Universal's best marketing efforts, the film only mustered $25 million. 'In the end, it was what it was: a tough sell,' says Whedon, adding that it appears the Firefly saga has reached its conclusion. He has no regrets -- and he's moving on."
Oh come on, he happens to make this statement on the very day the DVD is set to be released? Sounds like a marketing gimmick to me... If the DVD sales are amazing - and they might be, considering the cult status of the show - he can then announce a miraculous comeback.
Personally, I liked the show, I really liked the movie, and I can see why both failed in the financial sense (bad marketing for both, episodes out of order and plot development much too slow in the show).
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It was poorly planned. They tried to keep too many secrets from the audience, which just wound up making the show hard to get attached to. Compare it to lost: lost only gives you a few mysteries at a time, and always wraps up a few before delivering the next batch. Firefly really needed better writers and better planning.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Fox had the rights to the TV show and would not allow it to be made. Universal optioned the rights to a movie but couldn't use the name Firefly which is why they used the name "Serenity".
It would've been wonderful for more episodes of the show but the moguls wouldn't have it.
Ah well, it was a great show and it was fun while it lasted. I've got no regrets for supporting the show as much as I had.
You can't take the sky from me.
This article has been linked to a lot over the past few days on various Firefly/Serenity boards. The quotes from Joss have clearly been taken out of context, a quick read-through of the other interviews he's given over the past few days show this. He's found closure because he got to tell the story he wanted to tell from the beginning. But he's said that if he had the chance to tell another story in the 'verse he turn right around and do it. Specifically, he's hinted that another movie would reveal that bounty hunter Jubal Early from the last episode of Firefly is very much alive. I'm a Browncoat but I don't stick my fingers in my ears and go "lalala I can't hear you" when people suggest the franchise has come to an end. But this article is simply trolling. FYI, Joss has confirmed that he's going to write another series of Serenity comics, and has been saying for months that the DVD sales of Serenity will determine whether the franchise will be seen on screens (big or small) in the future. EW are just quoting Joss out of context to stir up some contraversy. I for one am very unimpressed.
I hope that 'Universal's best marketing efforts' were better in other countries, here in New Zealand I saw not one mention of Serenity in any advertising media at all.
If I had not watched the series on DVD and followed the talk about the movie on the web, I would probably not have known it was even being produced.
Sadly on its opening night in my region there were only 12 other people in the theatre... at least it was quiet.
If I had a DeLorean... I would probably only drive it from time to time.
This is a fairly misleading headline/summary/article stub. In (numerous) interviews over the past week or so, Joss says in most of them that any future Firefly/Serenity-age would depend on the DVD sales being particularly big.
"It would depend on huge numbers from the DVD," writer/director Whedon allows. "Obviously, we are still shy of making our money back from the box office. But we are within shouting distance. Still, it would have to blow up pretty huge for a sequel to be called for.
"Mind you, stranger things have happened. And they do seem to happen to me. So it's not like I'm shutting the door." -- Toronto Star interview
"The, um, the movie is finished. And the story is told. The world is not finished. There's more to tell, but that's always the case with everything I do and whether I get the chance to tell [it] or not it is up to somebody else. So I made sure that this movie had completion and didn't feel like a glorified prequel. It's its own piece and it wraps everything up. I have a sense of closure that I never had, and I can walk away satisfied. But if somebody tells me not to walk away, I'll turn right back around." -- Comcast Movies interview
This EW article seems to take the stance that since Whedon is working on projects other than Firefly/Serenity and is taking a realistic view towards their finances, he clearly has abandoned them, despite the fact that his other projects have been in the pipe for some time.
Actually, it's more like "We won't make it, and we won't allow anyone else to make it, because it's ours. We don't care that it might make or lose money for someone else. It's our football, and nobody else gets to play with it."
This is the standard attitude among publishers of pretty much anything.
Other than Joss not having the rights to the show (as mentioned above), I had heard that the episodes were on the order of a $1 mil / each to film and release.
Double-checking, I'm wrong, it's $2 million per episode in production costs for Firefly... That's almost as much as ABC's Lost, and there they have a huge audience and marketing engine behind the show. They only got $38 mil total for the Serenity movie, about $ 3/4 mil short of the public production costs.
In my humble opinion, Joss should be seeking to release an adult-level animated series, similar to WB's Batman, or even an anime-style futuristic romp. The level of detail, varied scenery, and scale of the sets are just too big for production offices these days, and if you can't film it, you can certainly draw it.
Sci Fi is not owned by Fox, it is owned by NBC.
$#!^ happens, but why does it always have to happen to me???
I honestly can't remember the last time a Universal film did well. Even King Kong (which I saw today and is overlong and indulgent) is taking in below expectation. Warner and Disney and Fox all have their successes, but Universal and Paramount have both been struggling recently.
Serenity got near to no publicity here. I go to the cinema most weeks through the Summer and only knew thw film was coming out because I read Slashdot and PA. Universal really didn't do their job here.
Actually the movie has grossed 38 million, one million short of the budget. Heres the industry rule of thumb. Box office is 1/5 of the total income from a movie, once you include DVD sales, and showings on television. Production budget is 1/3 of the cost of the movie once you figure in marketing and distribution costs. So the movie cost 117 million and will make about 190 million when all is said and done. Rumor has it they skimped a lot on the marketing, so it will actually be quite a bit more profitable than that. Also, Serenity is the number one DVD sale on Amazon today, so DVD sales may be a lot more than expected. Anyone who thinks it was a "flop" does not know what they are talking about. Not that it was a huge success, as movies go.
Wow, you're in the minority here. Most of the critics loved the film, even the indie critics at efilmcritic.com, who usually don't like anything unless it came out of some film festival...
58% of the critics on that site gave it their highest rating (for comparison: 21% for Phantom Menace and 65.95% for the original Matrix). Less than 10% felt it was below average; only 4.5% said that Serenity was "total crap."
Don't give up on it yet. Firefly fans need to buy the DVD when it comes out to show the companies how they can REALLY make money off the series. Of course, Fox would probably be too stubborn to part with TV rights no matter how much money was waved under their noses. :-(
So we have to make this movie a MOVIE success on DVD, or it's curtains for the series for good.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Before seeing it, I was hoping Serenity would have done better so wed get sequels or maybe even have Firefly come back to TV (although I never really beleived the latter would ever happen)
That said, after seeing Serenity, I felt it is a great ending to Firefly.
The big dark secret of the Alliance was revealed (although im sure there are others, and this finally explains the reevers), they're no longer going after Simon and River. We find out a bunch of stuff about River. River finally has a real place in the crew (as the new pilot) and it seems she is less insane now that the truth about the reevers was revealed
While I'd love to find out more about Book, it seems pretty clear he was like the assassin in the movie before he became a shephard, i still feel Serenity was a good ending and it left me satisfied.
The only part im sad about is it seems Joss had plans for 2 more and if thats true then there must have been more plot to explore but now we'll never know
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/Pedant Off
I had that problem too, i wanted to take someone to see it but it was no where to be found by then. If you dont hammer the box office the first week nowdays you're history. Even with an order of magnatude more screens than the good old days, they dont last any longer than they used to :(
:(
It's tough to sell your friends on a movie thats gone by the time you convince anyone to see it.
Despite Universal best efforts, i think i only saw one or two trailers for it. And they werent really very compelling trailers at that
Oh, well...you all know the tag line for here....
Jayne!
The Man they call Jayne!
Oh, He robbed from the rich
and he gave to the poor.
Stood up to the man
and he gave him what for.
Our love for him now
ain't hard to explain.
The hero of Canton
the man they call Jayne.
more...
Actually, it was Jayne.
/pedant
Rhapsody in Numbers
That $38 million is the box office take, which includes the cut that the theaters get. The actual amount that the studio got was significantly lower, and so there's a lot of ground to be made up on a DVD release. It would have to sell many millions of copies in order to fill in the gap.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
If you listen carefully, you'll notice that the word 'Firefly' isn't said at all in the film.
"Ensign: We got a pos on a retinal--man carrying her out is Malcolm Reynolds, captains a Firefly-class transport ship 'Serenity'. Bound by law five times..."
It's in the script. I'll check my DVD when it gets here this week.
-=Maggie Leber=-
He could always make a new show with similar charactes and a similar setting, or even a different setting. That's the beauty of fiction isn't it? He can just borrow from it and continue to be creative (that's why the show was good right?) just don't remake it.
This is straight from Joss himself on Whedonesque: All right, now I have to jump in and set the record straight. EW is a fine rag, but they do take things out of context. Obviously when I said I had 'closure', what I meant was "I hate Serenity, I hated Firefly, I think my fans are stupid and Nathan Fillion smells like turnips." But EW's always got to put some weird negative spin on it. But so we're clear once and for all: If you read a quote saying "I'd love to do more in this 'verse with these actors in any medium" all I'm saying is that Nathan has a turnipy odor. It's not his fault, he doesn't eat a lot of them but everyone else in the cast noticed it and tht's not really something I'm prepared to deal with any more. And Jewel said outright she wouldn't do scenes with him except stuff like the SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER funeral scene which was outside in a high SPOILER wind. So if I do manage to find another incarnation for my beloved creation, it will have been totally against my will. I hope that clears everything up. Oh, and when I say I want to do a Spike movie, it means I have a bunion on my toe. -joss (by which I mean Tim) (no, actually me.) joss | December 21, 02:12 CET You see? EW can stop stirring up contraversy and just bugger off for all I care.
Seriously, I remember when the first previews came out, and every time I tried to talk to anyone who was lucky enough to see it, when I asked them about it, all I got was a ashen-faced forlorn look. Evenually, when you learn that they kill off several characters, you can't help but think...WTF was Whedon smoking?
Okay, I'm the last person to feel like we need to have cushy Star Trek rules where everyone lives that's a main character and only nameless red shirts die. I'm perfectly fine with major characters getting axed in a series...although you always hope it happens on the writer's terms and not because one of the actors dies (so sad, West Wing). But killing off a main character to fans is the like charging $20,000 on your credit card. That better be a damn spectactual investment that pays dividends in the long run that make up the cost. Otherwise, you've left a real goodwill vacuum.
Personally, I was I think most upset that Shepard Book was killed off. He was a great character, an walking apparent contradiction between his current peacemaker role and apparently some military past life (showing his ID card to the Alliance doctors to get someone medical treatment). The character Book gave a nice calm anchor to provide sage advice and comfort. Who would take his place? Is Jayne going to wax poetic when they face some great evil? So, killing of Book...which I would totally accept on its own...was a really ballsy move. The only way to make up for it would be to introduce a new "father figure" or similar replacement. But the movie didn't do that, or even hint at it.
Then they killed off Mr. Universe or whatever his name was, and a host of virtually every other bit character from the original series. This is the salt-the-earth style I'm talking about. Maybe none of those characters were worth a spit, but they were established coordinates on the Firefly roadmap. The movie only really introduced one new location, and it was devoid of human inhabitants. So it's like Firefly might as well be alone in the galaxy as far as relative relationships. If the movie had done well and a new series was greenlighted...it would have literally been like day one having to introduce a raft of new characters to replace all of the ones you wastefully killed off. Again, it could be done, but...only if the payoff is worth it.
And finally, killing off Wash. And doing in the most offhanded, insulting "ooga boogy" way possible. "Well I guess we're all OKAYAAAAAAAAAAHOMG (die)" That was just crap writing. And Zoe who was willing to storm the citiadel of some well armed private army to save him, just turned and walked away leaving his corpse to well known reaver necrophiliacs? One person who saw and early screened said..."I would have totally bought his death 100% if like at his gravesite Zoe had calmed cut off her ring finger with wedding ring and left it on his grave" I totally agree. It was like he was a total minor character in how his death was handled. And, maybe he wasn't a major character, but his marriage to Zoe had to at least elevate him higher than Simon, River, or even Jewel.
So, in my opinion, what killed Firefly is that as a mainstream movie, it didn't have the trite happy ending that the mainstream wants. And as a fan movie, it burned a season worth of fan goodwill for absolutely no reason at all. It had the plot of a mid-season extended episode, but it had the resolution of a series finale. And so, that's what it became. As a true Firefly fan...I honestly don't know if I would want whatever Firefly series would have had to follow that movie. If I were to close my eyes and dream at all now, it will be for a Firefly prequel about the war and the history Browncoats.
Firefly, in the end, was like Cowboy Bebop...an amazing ride, but written in such a way that when its over...its over.
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Is here. His comment begins "All right, now I have to jump in and set the record straight"
Actually, the parent comment specified Science Fiction top sellers, not all DVD sales. At the time that I write this, Firefly and Serenity occupy the top two spots on the SciFi top sellers list. And it seems that Firefly has moved to #5 on the overall top sellers list.
This little blurb seems completely contrary to
http://whedonesque.com/comments/9027 and
http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=22059 (look towards bottom of article).
Here's the full text of Joss's own reply:
It was my understanding that the main actors all signed contracts for up to 3 movies.
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
Here's the direct link to that wonderful statement: http://whedonesque.com/comments/9027#101124
"Her idea of wit is nothing more than an incisive observation humorously phrased and delivered with impeccable timing."
Entertainment Weekly may be calling Serenity a failure and Joss Wheedon may be washing his hands of this project, but that doesn't change the fact that out of two Blockbusters and a Hollywood video in my town, none of them had copies to rent. All were checked out today...
I call bullshit on this one. Most people I know never heard of the movie. When I went to the theater, there was no movie poster nor a listing on the Marque. The screen number that it was showing in, rather than having a lit sign over the number, had a hand written tag taped to the light, and this is no "small" theater. This was the largest in the area.
I was very much awaiting Serenity so that I could go see it with a bunch of my friends but it never appeared in any theaters in Finland! There was mention of it for a short time on one of the movie distributors webpages http://www.sandrewmetronome.fi/ but it disappeared shortly after. Obviously the movie was dropped. I also consulted the main movie theater company http://www.finnkino.fi/ about the movie but they had no knowledge of serenity or whether it was coming (and that was on november).
How are they going to get viewers for the movie when the movie can't be seen in any theater!? The potential certainly was there - the Firefly series has been shown on nationwide TV just this year!
I've already seen Serenity (thanks to p2p networks) and I thought it was great - I'll probably buy the DVD on January/February next year when it's released in Europe. And the complete series along with it.
It would have been nice to even have had a chance to see it.
Well, in Serenity she is in the sunlight; also, having a vamipre or something supernatural(mystic) really doesn't fit in. :-)
;-)
.
Although, an "Inara" _is_ the Hindu goddess of rain and lightning and the Japanese god(dess) of rice/food
From what you have pointed out I would think more along the lines of genetic experiments/modifications(*).
Stuff like this is mentioned in the series (not only River), it could easily explain old-age-but-young-looking and could also tie in nicely with the "Blue Sun" storyline.
Also, maybe this isn't something special to Inara but that the companion training in general isn't only about candles, tea, pillows and seduction but also some genetic enhancements..
And I woudn't think that much about the (cross)bow with the rocket-powered bolts/arrows because it also fits that Inara uses weapons that are - compared to the guns of the crew - some more modern (although bow, it is an electronic enhanced bow) and stylish.
In fact, in the series (the scene you referenced at the end of "Trash") she also is the only one of the crew using a modern weapon (that little "ladylike" laser gun).
(*) Using that suicide kit will probably turn her into Ms. Hyde