Serenity DVDs--Not the Safe Bet Everyone Thinks

POSTED BY: StakeTheLurk
UPDATED: Tuesday, November 1, 2005 04:13
VIEWED: 32591
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WAXWING6

Sunday, October 23, 2005 5:43 PM

"...not a fun movie to watch."????????????

I've seen it twice and loved it better the second time. The are so many layers, you can't see everything in one viewing.

SHINYMOM

Sunday, October 23, 2005 7:03 PM

Six of us went to see Serenity last night. The theater was packed!! All of us had seen it at least once, some four times, and I'd seen it six times. It just gets better and better. I kept sneaking peaks at the people down the row from me. They were enthralled. People reacted to the humor, the angst, and the triumphs appropriately. There were people in the audience who had never seen it because there was a huge gasp in the crowd when Wash was killed.

When it was over, I heard comments like, "Man, that was great!" and "I told you you'd love it." A number of people stayed through the credits.

I live in Fresno, CA where there has never, to my knowledge, been any kind of Browncoat activity. When we went the first time, I took a friend of my son and his girlfriend who had never seen Firefly. Didn't know a thing about it. She loved it! She in turn took her dad who loved it, too. And then she told her best friend who went to see it and then bought the Firefly DVD set. I think this is going to continue as long as it's in theaters anywhere. And then when ithe DVD comes out a lot of people will buy it or get it for Christmas and the conversions will continue.

So keep going to see it, buy multiple DVD's of Serenity when it comes out, buy a Firefly boxed set to lend out. Keep posting, download podcasts, buy anything Firefly or Serenity that's available.

Let's continue doing the impossible.

"Chow's in ten...no need to dress."

XEPHERYS

Sunday, October 23, 2005 7:26 PM

Well, the rental options can be helped by customer suggestions as well. I had never seen Firefly before watchnig Serenity at the theatres. After that, I had an insatiable desire to see the series. Best Buy and Fry's near me (Tempe, AZ) had a few copies that sold out quickly, and had a difficult time getting more. Also, local video rental outlets did not carry the series. I've sent a few suggestions in (most notably to Blockbuster) regarding the benefits of carrying Firefly (people in my ship, who are new to the 'verse and want BADLY to see it and people who will be renting it in December, and will want to see the series afterwards). As a side note, I ended up buying the set from Amazon. Only $32 to boot!

Also note, to whomever was putting together numbers above, that total sales figures do not look at retail values of the DVDs, but rather wholesale numbers (what the studios actually make). This is unlike movie tickets, which are estimated by total tickets sold with a ticket average cost in most markets (meaning that adult tickets at $8 and student tickets at $6 probably both get tallied at $8 or $7.50 or some such number).

LOVOK

Sunday, October 23, 2005 9:51 PM

To those who think Serenity is too painful to watch because some main characters die: you have not seen enough Buffy! Go watch Season 5's "The Body" and then tell me Serenity is too painful to watch again, lol. :)

To me, Serenity represents the most fun I've had at the theater in a very, very long time. It's a hell of a good time with some great dramatic scenes in it to boot.

EBANZAI

Monday, October 24, 2005 1:42 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by StakeTheLurk:
That means Serenity must outsell “Firefly.” By a factor of 3. Minimum.

And that, fellow browncoats, is a huge amount of DVDs. 1.5 million, minimum (2 million would be much better).

My own guesstimates put the DVD sales at 1.2mil copies - I think that's a very attainable number.

And there's a lot of revenue you're not considering:

- US TV syndication deals (my guess: 90% of $8mil)

- international TV syndication (my guess: 90% of $5.3mil)

- US home video rentals (my guess: 50% of $15mil)

- international home video sales (my guess: 67% of $8mil).

If you look at my original profit/loss post, my numbers do still show Serenity coming in with a net loss, but it's close enough that over time it'll creep its way to profitability.

Quote:
Originally posted by StakeTheLurk:
For some additional (slightly different) information about DVD sales and other financial matters, check out Ebanzai’s thread on how to guesstimate Serenity’s profit/loss: http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=14021

Thanks for the reference!

NDGEEK

Monday, October 24, 2005 5:14 AM

The other issue is that Universal only gets a small percentage of the profits after opening weekend. Opening weekend they get 100% of the box office take, but it ramps slowly down from there.

See: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/movie-distribution4.htm

I guess a dollar toward a cause is still a dollar, but its certainly weaker than the opening few weeks.

--Chris

TULLYANO7

Monday, October 24, 2005 7:43 AM

The Firefly DVD Set had sold 250,000 a couple of months after its release which was about 2 years ago in the US alone.

It has been among the top selling DVDs at Amazon, DeepDiscount DVD and many other online stores for about the last year, and it has been released overseas and is on the top lists of JBHifionline and EZYDVD a full 1 year after its release. The Australian distributer has even run out of stock and has had to import more.

So Please stop saying the DVD set has only sold around 250-500. It would have easily sold at the very minimum 1.5-2 million copies.

EBANZAI

Tuesday, October 25, 2005 12:13 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by ndgeek:
The other issue is that Universal only gets a small percentage of the profits after opening weekend. Opening weekend they get 100% of the box office take, but it ramps slowly down from there.

See: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/movie-distribution4.htm

That's interesting. I haven't heard that before. I get the feeling that the numbers used in that article were just an example and not meant to necessarily reflect real distribution deals.

Makes it even harder to guesstimate profitability.

I would like confirmation on this though - I hesitate to trust one single site for info and it's odd that I haven't heard this discussed by industry watchers before.

EBANZAI

Tuesday, October 25, 2005 12:16 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by tullyano7:
It has been among the top selling DVDs at Amazon, DeepDiscount DVD and many other online stores for about the last year, and it has been released overseas and is on the top lists of JBHifionline and EZYDVD a full 1 year after its release. The Australian distributer has even run out of stock and has had to import more.

So Please stop saying the DVD set has only sold around 250-500. It would have easily sold at the very minimum 1.5-2 million copies.

One thing to be careful about the amazon top seller list - I think it's recalculated every day (or who knows, every hour?). So naturally the Firefly DVDs would get a nice spike with Serenity's release. But that doesn't mean it's amazon's nth-best selling DVD ever.

I do agree though, the Firefly DVD set does seem to be a strong seller. I wish distributors were more forthcoming about their DVD sales figures.

NDGEEK

Tuesday, October 25, 2005 1:04 AM

Alright I found another site:

http://www.iceco.com/information.htm

It may not be 100%, but its pretty high the first weekend.

--Chris

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