A suit's eye view on Serenity and sequels
POSTED BY: tiredoldreaver
UPDATED: Sunday, October 30, 2005 18:03
VIEWED: 27731
PAGE 6 of 7
I think SciFi would do quite well with new "Firefly" episodes. They are pulling in viewers with the reruns of the original episodes.
I just talked to my daughter in California this evening and she and her fiance are big SG-1 fans and they started watching Firefly because I encouraged them to and because it was on before their favorite show. They LOVE it! They are getting the DVD's and catching up with all that they have missed. Now they are active fans... the kind that have viewing parties with their friends and share stuff and are very dedicated.
They are as crazy about the 'verse as they are about SG-1 so they will recruit many more browncoats I'm sure!
SciFi has made a wise decision showing Firefly, I hope they look at their ratings and realize they need Firefly to continue. Then like you say, let's have 2 or 4 more movies, and carry on with this series!
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A couple of months ago, I had barely heard of Firefly - basically, I knew it was "from the guy who made Buffy" and that, according to some (now I reaize, seriously idiotic) fellow anime fans, certain ideas - namely the whole outlaws in space theme and the "girl in a box" scene (both of which were very similar to parts in an anime show that was reasonably popular at the time, called Outlaw Star... which I remember enjoying, actually, during its brief run on Cartoon Network). I knew that it had gotten canceled, that Joss was planning some comics and had convinced somebody to do movie based on it... that, I only knew because I subscribed to various SF online newsletters.
Then, thanks to a very good friend of mine, I ran across a set of forums called Godawful Fan Fiction.
The people of GAFF are many and varied in age, origin, and tastes, but one thing they tend to have in common: they're fairly intelligent and enjoy a good, well-written (or just plain amusing) story.
After having been convinced by one GAFFer to give Witch Hunter Robin a second chance (the only episode I had caught was, it turned out, the weakest in the series), and finding it quite good, I started noticing a handful of passionate Firefly fans on there...
Eventually, there were more and more of them. Eventually, I started thinking, "Well, I loved Buffy and Angel, and ever since Tru Calling [another cult show that died tragically thanks to the idiot suits at Fox who can't schedule a good show worth crap - believe me, House MD is lucky to still be on the air!] got canceled, I've gotta say that Fox are idiots who very well COULD cancel a really good show..." Then I found out it was originally on on Friday nights, which it turns out tends not to be good for SciFi on the lower networks, and realized that like my darling TC (which was constantly surrounded by reality shows or episodes of the The OC, and then later pinned DIRECTLY against the original CSI series aka The Juggernaut You Can't Hope To Beat In Ratings Even If It's a Damn Rerun)... it was probably just a victim of crappy scheduling and poor marketing.
Then, I heard SciFi was going to run the TV series and some promotional clips for the new movie. Since it was airing on a day I usually get off from both work and classes, I decided to check it out.
The first episode I saw was *checks* oh yes, the train robbery episode, about episode 2 or 3, depending on whether you count the series opener (apparently a two-hour/two-parter, yes? I unfortunately missed it on TV :( ) as one episode or two.
I liked it. It was every bit as funny and well-written as the best episodes of Buffy, Angel or Tru Calling (not surprising, seeing as the show as a whole turns out to share a writing staff with all three shows!). Exciting, with good action, a neat twist, and interesting characters... and I loved how the setting was really more of a western in space than a space western ("random ragtag group of outlaws/bounty hunters/explorers in space" is actually a more common subgenre than you might think... with both Outlaw Star and the more famous and superior Cowboy Bebop being good anime examples; but, the thing is, they always played up the SF aspects with other races or Asimovian technology, and in the case of Bebop, it's not actually a "western" feel since it was made more like a 70s cop show... only much, much cooler). It really felt fun, exciting, and down to Earth (if you'll excuse the pun) all at the same time.
Then I caught another episode. And another.
A few weeks later?
I'm completely, utterly, 100% addicted. I now get upset if I miss an episode on SciFi. I almost got mad at one of my best friends because he ended up doing homework on his day off from schoool (he's still in high school, I graduated last year) instead of taking me to see Serenity and Corpse Bride like he semi-promised (actually, we were going to buy tickets to Serenity and then after seeing it, execute a carefully-planned Theatre Hop to Corpse Bride, since Serenity needed the income, Corpse Bride not so much. Plus, I had never Th
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Wow, I wish I had that much energy! 
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This is a great post. Thank-you. It's so nice to see, as you said, a "suit's" point of view to these things. I have no idea what sort of business logistics exist.
It's nice to know what the possibilities are.
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I just wanna thank all you shiny ruttin' cheerful folk for brightening my 'verse. I had despaired that the show/movie/'verse I had followed with glad heart from the very beginning would be over and done with, a leaf on the wind, if you will.
Then I come in here, just to rehash, and find this thread and all the 'verse is shiny again! Thank you.
Jayne, yer mouth is talkin'. You might want to look to that.
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What?
You wrote:
Quote:
But, it'd be awesome to have another season of the series with new cast members. It wouldn't taint the memory of our fallen crew by replacing them, and it wouldn't screw up the group dynamics. Instead, we'd meet a whole new group. With Joss's witty writing and his talent for picking the perfect cast, we're sure to get something shiny.
What fallen crew? We know that we lost one crew member, but Joss has already signed all of the cast for the next 2 movies, so we know that even though two important cast members died, they will be back in some form for the sequels, and not in a cheezy way. So they could be in flashbacks, or memories or Alliance footage, but they will be there. And believe me it would definitely screw up the dynamics to have a whole new crew. We are pretty sure that Inara will be back on Serenity, as will all the regulars. Joss still has a story to tell and hopefully he will get the chance to tell it his way. I even read someone comment on another board about Simon's death!
Did they leave the theatre before they saw him and Kaylee making love while Serenity was being repaired?
justbrowsing
"I aim to misbehave" - Mal.
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Do you feel the love? Thanks for posting good info for all of us here. Now, to get seriously random for a second...
"The Random Elves of Chocolate Land" (apogees to Doug)
The elves of Pixietex were transported to the Land of Chocolate by way of a freak website accident when each of them simultaneously pushed "post my reply" on a reply containing the word "chocolate".
The speed of light was brought into play by this seemingly random act (photons being notoriously mischievous and slippery fellows), when the resulting combination of 1s and 0s dialed the unpublished cell phone number of the local deity. Always a fan of any joke with the punchline "chaos", it created The Land of Chocolate in the twinkling of its eye.
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Thank you, Thanks to all of you for restoring a measure of hope that Serenity may fly again.
Even though I may have only recently joined the Browncoats on this forum, I would have volunteered for the Independents myself after Firefly first aired on Friday night with "The Train Job". Never have I fallen in love with a show so completely from nearly the first frame as I did with Firefly. It was unique. Offering a universe as rare and compelling as Star Wars and Star Trek and yet that stood for something more...human. Its stories were suffused with the depth, intelligence, and fervent dedication of a cast and crew only matched by the brilliance of Joss' creative vision. Then the villians at FOX, after bungling the marketing, advertising, time slot selection, airing the pilot not only out of sequence but in the MIDDLE of the bloody World Series, as for them to react with such gross stupidity, incompetance, and short-sightedness(anyone else remember X-files' rocky start?) as to cancel it without even giving it a full season or even a fair half of one to prove itself sickened me to my core. After that, I was left with only the slim hope that Joss wouldn't let them take the sky from me and that the series would fly again on Scifi's wings. This I thought was a match made in heaven as Scifi's has the money, and Firefly had the talent so I drafted a letter to Scifi laying out item by item what I believed the show's greatest strengths in detail and why it deserved to live but the days turned into months without a reply or the show's rebirth, I simply lost hope and life trudged on its natural course until I first heard news of Serenity (considerably latter than that news was first released but oh well...) and my first thought was of course elation immediately followed by a resurgence of hope that perhaps now the series might be reborn. When I heard that Joss' had gotten the greenlight from Universal (which owned ironically enough Scifi), I become even more enthusiatic about the prospect of Firefly's rebirth with the same crew and cast that we left behind those nearly three cold, hard years since its betrayal at the murderously inept hands of FOX network execs. Thank you, friends, for giving this battleworn soldier a reason to smile. I certainly wouldn't mind a sequel, but any resurgance of the series simply carry the same cast, crew, and creative genius of the original series. It simply wouldn't be Firefly without ALL(Sheppard's death was senseless - I thought they portray him as the former Operative and teacher of the Operative in the movie; Wash's death was even more so) of them would it? I do have a question though: My understanding(too long ago to quote, sorry) was Joss' had acquired ALL rights to Firefly, including the DVDs sales(which came latter to begin with) which captured Universal's nod for Serenity. Are we sure that the profits are still being funneled to those idiots at FOX responsible for killing it and not to Joss where it belongs. He was rich enough to get his series mass produced, distributed, and sold by himself or through a third party agency(like Universal). Yes, I know its probably blind hope that the FOX on the back of the box means that one revenue stream is closed) I hope that its was his in every fiscal sense of the word since that will place all of Firefly's combined might to work for its own survival. Anyone know definitively?(Forgive the long-windedness of this post, it will be the last time I write a post at 4 in the morning!)
The Empire is not Evil, only those who rule it.
It seeks Peace, Order, and the Imperial Way.
The Rebellion stands in the Way of Peace and Order, so it must be destroyed!
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Feelin' a little blue this evenin' what with all the posts about the BDM being pulled from Switzerland and other places.
Also it's not at the theater here anymore, so no weekend outing to see our heroes and their daring adventure. I really do have to wait for the DVD in Dec. now. Yikes.... I hope I make it. Well, I do have Firefly.... I could watch a marathon and try to come down easy. "Sigh"
I did talk to my daughter in Cali. just a few minutes ago and she and her fellow are going to try to find it and go. She promised to let me know all about it if they got to. I'll post something....
Tiredoldreaver, I haven't seen you post in awhile, you here? How does it look to you now, still a little optimistic?
A kind word would not go amiss....
"I aim to misbehave" - Mal.
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Hi Followmal! Yes I'm still here, and still working the numbers. Actually, I think the movie has had a pretty good week, and I was just waiting to see how many cinemas we're left with in domestic US and UK before posting again. But I wouldn't want you feeling blue Followmal, so I've summarised my thoughts below.
It's pretty interesting how each European (and other) market is developing. As you might expect, there are huge differences in takes in each country. You mentioned Switzerland being pulled. I mean absolutely no disrespect to the good people of Zurich and elsewhere, but good!The movie grossed $0.02million there in 5 days. Contrast that with Spain, which is a market I didn't even think of. In 3 days, Spain has returned over half a million dollars in cinema sales!! A fab performance at this stage in the film's life cycle. If you've got a marketing spend per country,which I'm sure the studio have, then frankly it's a no brainer to pull Switzerland and put the spend in to developing or continuing the Spanish market!Spain is outperforming Switzerland 30-40X!! Concentrate the spend there.
Last week, International contributed around $3million of sales...a pretty strong performance. New markets are developing....Russia, of all places, the aforementioned Spain, plus "legs" in the UK. France looks solid. I am far from unhappy, just pleased that someone somewhere is cost managing this correctly! It bodes well.
The US element is winding down, but as I said previously, these takes at the end of the run are a real bonus. I'd calculated a domestic US end position of $25million with anything over that being genuine upside. Don't forget too, that the US domestic has contributed another $1.4million of sales last Thursday to this Thursday. Add in the $3million of International and the film has bagged about $4.4million in the last week....very satisfactory, and about $1.2million above my conservative projection.
It's natural, I know as the film starts to end its run , to be a little down, but in the Suit world, emotion doesn't matter whereas maximising $$$$ does, and in those terms it's been a very good week.
Believe me, we are very much Still Flying. Might even be able to afford that new part now. You know, the one that caused all the trouble in Out Of Gas!
(hmmmm....can't remember the part's name, however!)
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