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Independents Push For Second Firefly Season
ovanklot writes "It seems that Brilliant Screen Entertainment is looking to see if there is an audience for a second season of the science fiction show FireFly.
From the article: 'It's possible that subscribers may choose one of three playback options; monthly DVD deliveries, TV On-Demand using your cable or satellite provider, or computer viewing via Streaming Download.'" They are asking folks to fill out a short survey to gather demographics for support in their efforts to get Fox to release the show to them. The site also stresses that they want neither money nor confidential personal information.
It's about time that production companies considered DVD subscriptions.
The absolute best fans can hope for at this point is a straight-to-dvd 2nd season release.
That sounds significantly better than a TV release to me!
If Firefly is judged on actual sales instead of some idiot at a studio imagining that some lesser show would fare better in the same time slot, then FireFly will do pretty well - as evidenced by DVD sales thus far.
Frankly I could stand to have TV as we know it disbanded and just buy all entertainment either online or via DVD. I would not miss these archaic things we call "channels" whatsoever.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Ya know, seeing Serenity cured me of any further desire to indulge in the act of watching Firefly...
And it's contingent upon how well the first season of Firefly sells in DVD form.
Even then, they may only make movies from here on out... doing one, two, or maybe as many as three movies per "season" or some such thing.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
FOX has been bowing to public pressure recently with their cancelled series. Need I bring up Family Guy? FOX cancelled, got great DVD sales, and a larger following thanks to the repeats being aired on other networks. What did FOX do? They picked up the show again and started making new episodes. There's talk about Futurama getting new eps too. If there's enough support for more Firefly, we may get it. This survey sounds like a great way to gather data that can be used to show FOX that there is money to be made with a second season of Firefly.
It looks a little on the underdone side so far, but they're looking for information. That info could sway serious financial backers. Nothing like numbers to convince money-men that there's a buck to be turned off of us Browncoats... even if the numbers come from a goofy web form. It's probably the same folk what tried to finance the second season through donations (you may remember from a couple of weeks ago... they had to return them for reasons). I filled out the survey as I would like to see more of the show. I urge y'all to do the same. Maybe start to figure out a way to get better TV made and delivered in the process. I think it's shiny.
-mattzog http://www.micromatic.org/
Obviously they pulled the plug because of perceptions about how many viewers they had. Afterwards, the movie "Serenity" came out. I think the best strategy to get the show back on is to get copies of "Serenity" purchased and rented, and the same for the DVDs of the series. That way, the studio should say "Oh, I people didn't know about this before and do now since the movie came out". If they see signs that more people will be watching, they will probably renew. I also think getting the old episodes on iTMS or other video download or pay-per-view would be good, but they might try to milk the hardcore fans instead of actually renewing the series on non-pay channels, like Sci-Fi.
Sure many of us here do. But after the "Abysmal", and thats being polite, showing of the Firefly Serenity movie, Where would the motivation even be?
According to some figures I looked up, it looks like it may have come close to breaking even at the box-office. Yes, that would constitute a bomb by normal standards, but I bet nearly everyone of the diehard Firefly fans who went to see it also bought it when it came out on DVD. That would amount to a fair amount of money for Fox...
My guess is that there will either be a prequel, or a lot of flashbacks. Remember, there are 8 months of un-accounted for time between the series and the movie. Whatever it turns out to be, I trust the guy's storytelling abilities enough to believe it won't be cheesy.
In any case, Wash and Book are not gone.
My script don't crash! She crashes, you crashed her!
This is about the same as some independent mod team looking to make a game mod out of someone else's IP (actually, much more pie-in-the-sky thanks to the costs associated with producing the actual episodes, if they did get permission, which they won't).
It wouldn't fly no matter which big broadcaster owned the Firefly rights, and the fact that it is Fox should make this extremely obvious to anyone with half a brain.
I wouldn't mind seeing a series based on River and her kicking ass as a psychic assassin in the renewed revolt against the republic.
I watch very little TV and had little interest in either Serenity or Firefly ... that was before a friend suggested it over the weekend.
I'm up to the 5th episode - and actually look forward to watching a little each night.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
I've been thinking about how a viewer-funded TV show could generate additional income without requiring copyright to protect future profits. One way I came up with would be fan-paid trips to the set, and even fan-paid walk on appearances.
I've offered to US$500 to sponsor another season of Firefly. I'd likely pay US$2000 to get my name in the credits somewhere. I've done it at museums and other sponsorship activities -- not out of altruism but out of pure ego.
I'm not a browncoat, but I do love the show. I bought the DVD set before watching the TV show or even hearing about it anywhere, and it sat in the shrink wrap for months. Once I watched it (after 2 false starts) I realized that we need the first viewer-produced show.
I'd love to see Firefly v.2 be Whedon's real trial into seeing what one could do with an Open Source style show. Honestly, the costs of doing a show differently than a la Hollywood could bring in way more income without having to require people actually pay for the show. Let us produce it (meaning pay for it), let it be freely downloaded by the masses (maybe give it to the sponsor/producers first though and let them give it away to friends and family and then throw it online).
I think it would be very interesting to see how it goes. Of course Whedon would never allow it, but I'd put my money where my mouth is to get it going and the best way to generate interest is to offer it as the first big major production given away, with the full rights to the characters and name in the public domain. Imagine the fan fiction that could come out of it if the production company also offered to add fan-fic vignettes into the actual "official" episodes. Render your own battle scenes, video tape your own bar cut scenes, whatever. Want it in the show? Send it to us. Help us keep the show alive with your cash, while you're at it.
Serenity/Firefly is the most anarcho-capitalist plotline I've ever seen. I'd love to see freedom in the next production, not just in the plotline.
Ah, but 'sucks' is such a relative judgement, isn't it?
I thought TV sucked 15 years ago when I discovered the internet* and stopped watching, but Judith H. Crist! have you watched anything on the tube lately???
Watch MTV or Elimidate for five minutes and listen...that's the sound of your brain cells losing turgidity, collapsing into flaccid heaps.
Firefly could only be an improvement.
*-Yes, yes, yes, the internet sucks too, but it's interactive suckage, man!)
"To be fair, I was left completely unsupervised." ~Anon
i didnt give this show a chance when it was on tv, because it was on Fox. I have a low opinion of Fox shows, other than the Simpsons.
Not because I hate Fox or anything, but because I just don't get alot of their shows.
I wish I had given this show a chance, because once I saw it on SciFi channel, I was hooked. I can't believe that it didn't survive on network television, but I'm thinking it might be because of dumbasses like myself (not watching it).
The way that Mal guy acts and talks is perfect. He has a perfect grasp of that character.
Why can't the SciFi channel pick this show up? It'd be a ratings success. just throw it in the mix on Fridays after Battlestar Galactica or something to start out, that'd be one helluva lineup. Stargate, Stargate Atlantis, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly. wow.
Nope. He's all for it.
This is a series that just wont die.
Why should it? People are dying for it. Its got the same buzz that StarTrek had before it got screwed up with bad writing.
Let them find funding and NOT struggle with the networks for the show's distribution.
Let them shoot it in HD-TV and podcast it themselves.
I'd download it directly from their servers via the iTMS for $5.99 an episode.
Wanna bet that the next Disney Pixar feature is made available in EXACTLY that way.
Wanna bet that 'straight to DVD' features go straight to podcast instead?
Why pay for even DVD production right when you can get the money right out of consumer's pockets?
That how you make money. By cutting out the middle man.
No theatre to pay for.
No film 'canning' and reproducing to pay for.
No ad-men to pimp out your show with product placement to 'maximize the revenue stream.'
That's what I'm talking about...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Let's face it. A lot of problems happen in the entertainment industry because of lawyers. People just don't "play nice" because it would be a good thing to do for the fans -- they want MONEY. And nothing happens without the lubrication of MONEY.
... well, it doesn't look like a profitable venture.
Look at it this way:
The MAX HEADROOM TV SERIES -- is it out on DVD? No, it is not. Why? Rights issues.
DARIA - the Animated TV series from MTV -- out on DVD? No. Why? Music rights issues.
And unless someone is willing to fork over the dough to clear those rights and pay the rights holder and their lawyers what they want, it will not happen. And studios runs their excel spreadsheets and calculate that rights costs versus what they are projected to make on DVD sales isn't enough, then blammo, absolutely nothing happens and everyone sits on the rights they have until the other side budges, but they never do.
So, will Fox just "hand over" the rights so that Sci-Fi channel can make more episodes? NO, of course they will not. They want MONEY.
And if you take your excel spreadsheet, calculate the cost of the rights, the cost of production and the cost of everything associated with the production, versus what you'd make,
Easier and cheaper to make something bad, but original, that you don't have to buy the rights for or fork over a percentage of gross.
This is why Lucas made Star Wars and not FLASH GORDON.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
It does not matter whether Fox would be interested in another season.
Joss Whedon has stated numerous times, that he will never work with Fox again. He wants to do more with Firefly, but says that he refuses to do so unless Fox will relinquish the rights. If another studio buys the rights from Fox, the series might have a future. If Fox wanted him (or probably any original cast members) to make more episodes, they would refuse.
Of course, they'd probably have made a killing anyway if they'd just released it against Episode 3. After the first weekend when everyone realized just how bad that "film" was they'd all have gone running to see a scifi movie that actually had a plot or anything.
I respect your right to not like the movie. But...
One other thing that really didn't sit well with me was when Mal was talking to the bad guy, and Mal quickly said something like "I'm not gonna let you get a trace on me" and hung up. That's lifting a several-years-old technology hook from movies; these days, traces are instant
First, as another poster stated, he didn't say that. He stated that he wouldn't get a location trace off the wave, implying that it was encrypted or scrambled (you'll see a similar technique used in the hit Fox show 24). However, even if he did say "I'm not gonna let you get a trace on me," it wouldn't really suspend disbelief. You're assuming future communications systems, that allow real-time communications on the scale of a solar system, would have trace systems that operate similar to modern communications systems. That may not be the case.
However, they killed off two of the characters during the movie (both right near the end, so it wasn't even part of the story arc). It definitely seemed like a "nailing the coffin" ending.
One of the two deaths was needed to advance the plot, though. Book's death pushed the point home that they would not be safe while they were being hunted. It was an essential plot device.
Wash's death, while not essential to the plot, was essential for creating an atmosphere where the other characters were in danger. Without his death, we wouldn't be worried if the other characters would pull through. We would just assume that they can't die.
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