Serenity Still Has Legs

POSTED BY: iamspacecase
UPDATED: Wednesday, October 19, 2005 02:41
VIEWED: 7464
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IAMSPACECASE

Wednesday, October 19, 2005 12:45 AM

My general feeling has been a negative one, regarding the posibility of a sequal. A lot of this seems to be from interpreting Joss's post. Pooh on that. Being an old military man, I see all of this being an attempt to stir the Browncoats into a PR frenzy. They have counted heavily on the fan base for PR for this movie. I'm not a Hollywood executive, just a fan and a veteran that has learned to think on his own. I have no idea on the inner workings of hollywood, but this is a cash cow. From my experiences in the theatre, I would say that this film mainly appeals to the thirty and on up crowd, at least in the states. You are seeing alot of eighties re-releases, new Dallas movie, Dukes of Hazard, ect., because this age group has alot of disposable income. I'm hoping that we don't get a Dukes of Hazard sequal though. This is also the age group raised on Star Wars. Lucas didn't finish the SW series for the love of his fans he did it for $. Fantasy is the hot thing right now; LOTR, Harry Potter, Narnia, Serenity, the list goes on, Cash Cow. Lucas is switching to the small screen. I can only guess that the millions that he is dropping into his two TV series is going to pay off. Follow the cash you will find Lucas. So, gorram the negativity, I can't beleive the execs at Unoversal are stupid, but you never know. Shinny

IAMSPACECASE

Wednesday, October 19, 2005 1:02 AM

Quote:

I'm sure a sequal is on the way now.

There were three people watching Serenity. There is ten movies showing at this theatre. There were three people in the whole theatre. Serenity was the only movie people were in. I would say that was a pretty positive sign, espicially for a small city.

OPPYH

Wednesday, October 19, 2005 1:06 AM

I plan to see it 3 more times,(6 total) and I have friends and family all lined up to see it with me. I'm not letting it fade. I'm going out strong.

EBANZAI

Wednesday, October 19, 2005 1:41 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Jadehand:
Ok, I'm not sure, so I'm asking....
What about the 1,000,000+ Blockbuster video, Hollywood video, and Mom and Pop video stores everywhere. ... Doesn't that $$ go to Universal.

I believe the rental biz is all revenue sharing these days. The major studios supply the DVDs then split the profits (perhaps the studios get an additional amount to offset their initial costs of providing the DVDs). I guesstimated the revenue split at 40% for the studios.

One could probably infer more accurate numbers by studying a Blockbuster quarterly report, but that's a bit too much effort even for me.

The previously viewed DVDs that rental stores sell also have profit sharing arrangements with the studios. I was just reading something about this - revenue from previously viewed DVD sales is definitely rising.

CHRISTHECYNIC

Wednesday, October 19, 2005 1:51 AM

Depressing person that I am I want to call your attention to what Box Office Mojo had to say about Serenity over the weekend:

Quote:
Meanwhile, Serenity burnt off 54 percent of its business, landing at 12th place with $2.4 million. Despite a supposedly dedicated fan base, the $39 million space western has performed like a below average genre picture.

And here I thought we were actually loyal.

EBANZAI

Wednesday, October 19, 2005 1:54 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Unsardonic:
I posted a note in another thread Sunday stating that, because of the $22+ million in US grosses & the $28+ million in worldwide gross, the movie had already covered its negative cost and was beginning to make a dent in its P&A budget.

Unfortunately that "$28mil worldwide" number is composed of $22mil US and only $6mil foreign. So it's no where near its production cost of $39mil.

Besides, at best Universal gets only 50% of the worldwide box office. Then you have to deduct for advertising, prints, dubbing, taxes, etc in each country. I guesstimated those costs to be around $12mil.

Quote:
Originally posted by Unsardonic:
The negative cost was an INCOMPREHENSIBLY low $39 million - as reported in a 2-page LATimes feature article called "Down-home Directing" - I gave the article title because it was very EXcellent and, as of yesterday, it was still available on the L.A.Times website for downloading. Hell... I've gone multiple times because the thing's a frickin' master's class on economical filmmaking - I'm truly dumbfounded by how they all achieved this.

Yes, that article is a great read. And the more goodwill Joss can generate around Hollywood, the better for all of us!

Quote:
Originally posted by Unsardonic:
As to how full the theaters are, I live in Hollywood and here, I went (my 4th time) to a Sunday (3rd weekend) matinee that was nearly full - and the entire audience still applauded the credits! I took that to mean there were a bunch of new viewers there and that was very reassuring, because maybe it's not moving so fast in some towns but here, it's got quite a following.

That's good to hear. I think the Arclight dumped Serenity after the second week. I took that to be a bad sign. But I guess it just funneled more eager viewers to the theater you were at.

Here's my bit of positivity to spread:

I'm proud to say that my personal Serenity contribution is 17 tickets (counting myself and the friends and family I convinced to go see it who otherwise would've passed on it). I think I'll be able to break 20 as soon as I motivate a few more folks this coming weekend.

Oh and, of course, everyone enjoyed it and was glad that I had convinced them to see it!

EBANZAI

Wednesday, October 19, 2005 1:59 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
Quote:
Meanwhile, Serenity burnt off 54 percent of its business, landing at 12th place with $2.4 million. Despite a supposedly dedicated fan base, the $39 million space western has performed like a below average genre picture.

And here I thought we were actually loyal.

We are loyal, we're just smallish in number. I think 300,000 is a reasonable guess for the number of really rabid Firefly fans there were before Serenity opened. The good news is that I'm sure that number is growing every day as more people are exposed to this creation.

UNSARDONIC

Wednesday, October 19, 2005 2:09 AM

Ah-HAH!!

Are you positive about the US domestic being part of the worldwide gross? The way I read it seemed to imply that the worldwide was MINUS the U.S. ...but definitely you could be right.

And you obviously live in LA. Arclight didn't specifically "dump" it. They put it on screen #9 and then spent the entire weekend having a "Private Screening" on that screen. I had gone there on Friday afternoon to about 20 enthusiastic folk but Sunday ended up at the Grove - that was full and rockin'! It's wierd to me that Arclight might dump it and the Grove not, because they're both part of the Pacific chain.

But you're right about P&A costs etc... however I figured if there really were an almost $60-million worldwide gross (badly wrong if your data is correct), that would start to mitigate those costs. Did you have a solid source for that info?

EBANZAI

Wednesday, October 19, 2005 2:20 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Unsardonic:
And you obviously live in LA. Arclight didn't specifically "dump" it. They put it on screen #9 and then spent the entire weekend having a "Private Screening" on that screen. I had gone there on Friday afternoon to about 20 enthusiastic folk but Sunday ended up at the Grove - that was full and rockin'! It's wierd to me that Arclight might dump it and the Grove not, because they're both part of the Pacific chain.

Ah, okay. I ended up taking a second group to see Serenity the second weekend at The Bridge 'cause I didn't see it listed at the Arclight any more.

The first weekend was impressive though - theater must've been full of hardcore Firefly fans because in the full theater only THREE people left when the credits started rolling! Everyone else stayed through the end. I've never seen that before (I personally was hoping to see the Mutant Enemy logo at the end but was disappointed when he didn't make an appearance!).

Also I think the editor, Lisa Lassek, was in the audience that night (Sat) with a group of her friends - there was a smattering of applause when her named appeared in the front-end credits and then I thought I recognized her afterwards. The group of friends around her sounded like they were congratulating her, so the pieces seem to fit. Gotta love living in LA.

Quote:
Originally posted by Unsardonic:
But you're right about P&A costs etc... however I figured if there really were an almost $60-million worldwide gross (badly wrong if your data is correct), that would start to mitigate those costs. Did you have a solid source for that info?

Unfortunately, yes. The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, and boxofficemojo.com all list the foreign cume as $6mil, US cume as $22mil, worldwide adding up to $28mil.

DREAMTROVE

Wednesday, October 19, 2005 2:24 AM

I think Serenity has proven itself in two important areas:

1. It revived interest in the series.
2. It received accolades for quality including a place on the IMDB all time best movies.

I accept that it was a box office bomb, but that's only one area, and it's not the one Joss cares about, so I'm not too worked up about it.

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