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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."
Of course you could be cynical about it.
Joss realizes that this news will get out to the rabid fans IMMEDIATELY BEFORE RELEASE OF THE DVD... Is it coincedence?? I don't think so.
Because Fox owns the rights to the TV series, yes still. That's why it was made into a movie. Whedon was trying to keep it going
... And so it comes to this.
I know a lot of people found themselves enthralled in the whole "cowboys in space" theme, but why I cannot fathom.
It's not just "cowboys in space". It's about a man who is struggling to stay true to his heart. It's about the crew that grows up around him. It's about extreme civil disobedience in an opressed society. It's about doing what's necessary and about doing what's right. Space is just the scenery.
I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
We won't make it and we can't take the chance that someone else will make it, it will be a success and we will be shown to have made yet another bad decision.
If we don't want it no-one can have it.
I never really got into Buffy though I often saw it and enjoyed it, especially the "Grrr...argh" zombie at the end of every episode. Same with Angel, though I thought that was a much better show but only caught a few episodes. I heard Firefly was a good show and thought "what the hell" and bought the DVD, loved it. Until I watched it I didn't even know who Joss Whedon was, or that the show was made by the guy who made Buffy and Angel. "all" the computer nerds and sci-fi geeks (I'm one myself, what of it?) didn't jump on because of Joss, so stop throwing around accusations like we only love it because of its creator because that's gorram bullshit.
Firefly is obviously not a huge hit.
Firefly the series is the 6th most popular DVD sale at Amazon.com and Serenity is the most popular DVD sale on Amazon.com today. How do you define a hit?
But the fans already know there won't be a sequel without strong DVD sales. What this interview seems to be saying is that even with strong sales, Whedon may not be interested in continuing. That makes the buying argument weaker than before, and probably depresses many fans just when you'd want them out hyping your product.
Broadcast rights != Production rights
SciFi got a deal to run the reruns, just like Cartoon Network got Family Guy reruns. But the rights to make new episodes are still tightly guarded by Fox.
I don't understand how you can say that allowing Wash and Book to be killed was an attempt to reach a wider audience.
If anything I felt that it showed the core audience that this was not an episode of a TV series, where much could be expected to end up the same at the end as at the beginning. New viewers would not know of their earlier contributions to the story and would be much less attached to them.
I don't see how new viewers can have been a factor in the decision to let them die. New viewers would have gotten the same effect of seriousness if new characters had been added and then killed.
Also, River had been shown as having a 'super weapon' mode in the Firefly series, where she closed her eyes and killed three armed troops with three shots in about one second, so the movie was not 'turning' her into something new.
I loved the movie and will own the DVD today (first day out). If nothing else, you finally get to see what a Reaver really looks like.
If 'the people' in Amendment 2 are 'the state' then Amendments 1, 2, 4, 9, and 10 benefit the state, not you.
Joss Whedon quotes:
''I should say I'm above reading reviews,'' he says. ''But I would be lying.''
''In the end, it was what it was: a tough sell,'' says Whedon
As for Serenity, ''I have closure,'' he says. ''And now, I can have it in my home which means that finally I can actually stop working on it.''
Wow, how enlightening. Not a fucking word outta Joss's mouth about the end of Firefly (as opposed to Serenity - the movie.) Sure we have some screwball reporter's interpretation of whatever was said in the interview. Some say the reporter is paraphrasing him when he said that even if there is no more Firefly, the movie at least has some closure. For the number of times Joss talked about ideas for the future (ex. about Jubal Early - "Oh, I know he survived.") and how DVD sales will help determine Firefly's future, it's hard to imagine him totally giving up on the Firefly universe. Until I see exactly what Joss said, I have a real hard time swallowing this story whole.
On a side note, I am a rabid fan. Firefly is Joss Whedon's masterpiece so far. Astonishing X-Men is alright, Angel was good, and Buffy never really drew me in, but I do plan to watch my brother's copy of the series sometime. But if Joss is giving up on Firefly for good, he is throwing away the crown-fucking jewels , imho (which matters not, i am well aware...)
Thanks for letting me rant. This article is just really ticking me off right now.
Talk about a flashback. This was the most common thing I heard on the boards "they live in a dangerous world and killing wash made that world more realistic".
But I think that's really superficial. First of all, realism isn't the goal of entertainment. Realism is boring - we spend 1/3 our lives unconcious. That's real. Try that for a movie. When people say they want a movie to be "real" they mean they want it to be an immersive experience. This is something that fans of schindler's list and braveheart have in common with fans of the original star wars: we all want the movies to SEEM real, but not really be real.
And so the problem with killing Wash to me was that it DIDN'T help immerse me in the world. We've already seen one village decimated by reavers, the recording of another woman raped to death by reavers, AN ENTIRE F***ING PLANET where everyone's dead, every one the crew has ever met has died, one of the crew die, a lot of extra people die, and we're about to see Mr. Universe die. Oh and by the way the captain has threatened to start shooting his own crew. So for me, anyway, the whole "dangerous world" point had already been made.
What really bugs me, however, is that people act as though realism means people dying. How many people die in a real war? That are shot, I mean. In Iraq there's like what, 9 injured that survive to every one that dies? And yet in movies it's binary. You are shot and you either live or you die. So to me it seems amazingly hollow and superficial to be like "people dying is realistic". No, people GETTING HURT is realistic. When was the last time you saw a show or a movie where a main character got hurt and had to learn to live with the disability. I mean aside from the sub-genre where that IS the plot most characters exist in this crazy world where you're alive or you're dead. Could Wash have been paralyzed, lost an arm or a leg? THAT would have been realistic and challenging - but the truth is that that's not what we want in our movies - no matter how dark of a tone we're after.
I'm not desperately trying to say "why did they have to kill him", I'm saying that a world where bullets either kill you or you make a full recovery is just as escapist as a world where none of the hero's die. I would like to see a movie, this or any other, where a character suffers a serioues, permenant injury and the show goes on. That's not the whole plot, he never recovers, he just learns to live with the disability and the rest of the characters learn to deal with it.
In America we all avidly follow the body count in Iraq, but when we see someone without a limb or in a wheelchair we either stare or look away and in the end go back to our escapist world where you're either whole or gone. That's not reality at all.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
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."
Come on. It sucks that the show is dead, but Mr. Whedon did make a deal, and he did make a lot of money. When Josh sold Firefly to Fox he was just coming from Buffy and Angel, both very succesful (Buffy more so, of course.) I guarantee his deal was for six figures, if not seven. Universal probably got a better deal since the show wasn't so much of a hit, but it probably wasn't cheap to negotiate either. He could have held out for an option that returns the property back to him after a period of inactivity (though the major studios may or may not have gone for that.) Or better yet, he could have gone to Sci-Fi or another cable channel in the first place and got a deal that would have been more to his favor-- and put the show on in a place that would have a better chance of nurturing it, where a small but loyal fan base could carry a show. If he really felt this was a story that must be told he could have arranged for independant financing, produced the film himself and held on to all of the rights. He did not do that. He went for the major studio money and made a fair deal on their terms, knowing full well that the stakes are higher and most ideas don't make it. Yes, it's theirs and they can say what the future of Firefly/Serenity is... But the studios did invest quite a bit of money and time into productions that had a chance and failed. Why should they be expected to give back the rights? Because a relatively small fan base wants them to? Does Whedon even want them back?
Did the studios give the property a fair shake? Fox didn't, IMHO, but at least it was on the air for a while, which is more than most good ideas can say. Universal promoted it pretty heavily but it still tanked. Maybe this is just an idea that wasn't meant to find a mass audience. Anyway, Whedon's a creative guy, I'm sure he has more projects in the works.