Ways to Restore Firefly as a Series: A few possibilites
POSTED BY: ImperialKnight
UPDATED: Thursday, April 20, 2006 19:51
VIEWED: 19644
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This seems like the battle of Serenity Valley for all of us, browncoats.
Like some of you, I have been a die-hard fan from the very beginning.
The suits at FOX like Reavers persecuted Firefly relentlessly from the start. A simple review of the Facts:
1. FOX aired Firefly on Friday nights (the kiss of death).
2. The Marketing and Advertising for Firefly was virtually non-existent and flagrantly incompetent.
3. They would frequently preempted the show because it fell on the same night as the bloody World Series. It would have exploded if those lug-heads had waited till the summer season to air it or give it a chance to breath on a different night at a prime timeslot that did not conflict with the World Series or conflict with some other already obscenely popular show.
4. Although initially excited to have Joss (recognition of the obvious)
and recognizing the incredibly high quality of the cast, writing, story, and direction -- they pestered Joss with frivolously ridiculous demands: “More Action, More Sex, More Humor, more Drama, more, more, more!" without even giving Joss one bloody season, a decent timeslot, or a chance to blink. Like the Alliance hunting after River they hunted Firefly from the very first frame to Firefly's grounding.
This show appeals to all of us, even those of us who don't like Sci-Fi because it gives us characters who aren't the perfect little prodigal children all adhering to a single mold like Star Trek nor living in the impossibly heightened hyper-reality of Star Wars but are deep, intelligent, compelling, and above all realistic people locked in a world where virtue is not always rewarded and the good guys do not necessarily win. I believe that these corporate empires with their love affair for easy profit killed our show because its uniqueness, intelligence, and artistic strength paled in comparison to the force of their rapaciously shortsighted greed.
My point in all of this is that if we can't force Universal to restart Joss' short-lived masterpiece by playing by the rules then let's change them. The weakness in leaving it to Universal is essentially the same as leaving it to FOX (with some differences, but the same fundamental problem). “Selling” as Joss himself admits may not Joss' strong suit, but artistic vision is. The goal is to transform the equation entirely.
We are the central force in keeping Serenity flying so perhaps that is the way to restore the show to TV AND keeping it alive on the big screen. Star Trek and Star Wars did it, so why not Firefly?
Many of us (old guard and newfound conscripts alike) have already proven our devotion to the cause in the only language these suits understand: money. These suits have the power and influence to resurrect Firefly back to TV format but are seemingly blind to our incredible victory in taking a show that lasted only thirteen episodes and impressing a demigod of a conglomerate enough to make a major motion picture (which still didn't get the saturation advertising (commercials on primetime networks advertising both the movie and the SERIES in one 30sec+ package) nor marketing (in the form of enough theaters) to give it a chance to truly fly). As I said, we might need to re-think our strategy.
Here is the crux of what I propose:
1. Joss forms a corporation whose purpose is to buy Firefly’s way back into existence as a series. This corporation like all corporations will have shares so we browncoats can in essence buy ownership and share a stake in Firefly’s success. We can control Firefly's destiny instead of sacrificing massive amounts of money to dimwitted shortsighted suits only interested in cheap profit. We can use this ownership to negotiate with Sci-fi (owned by Universal) and buy a decent timeslot and pick up the series with the same cast, writers, director, etc. under Joss's direction. Then he won't have to continually "sell" his vision to those unsymPathetic fools because we will directly harness Firefly's resurgence. Of course, this requires an investment (note that the pu
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Wow, I'm impressed! What a a brilliantly thought out plan. Like many fans, I've seen the movie multiple times, bought the Firefly DVD set and the Serenity O.S.T, and watch the reruns on the Sci-Fi channel mainly out of a love for Firefly/Serenity, but also in the hope that the profits generated by doing these things will help to get the attention of the "middlemen". That said, I'm in agreement with you. I think we need to do more, and your proposal sounds like an excellent idea. Any thoughts on how to implement it?
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I have a few questions given the current state of the copyright world that need to be answered before action can be taken:
Does FOX still retain the TV rights to Firefly or does it just retain the DVD sales on the original series? I remember from a Joss Interview Joss saying that he got the rights after its cancellation to see if one of the other networks would bite(can't find the source information for that interview to reconfirm, but I know Joss said it). If FOX just retains the rights to the original half season, then Joss may have it or it may have gone implicitly to Universal when Joss agreed to do the movie. Either way, we should be set to go, once Joss buys into the idea and we get Scifi(Universal) to bite. Since my plan calls for Scifi (Universal) to show it anyway (Sci-fi is simply the best home for Firefly to begin with), it is really a matter of negotiation with hardcore suits with a presentation designed to help them realize the potential in Firefly’s untapped potential. We need Joss teamed up with a skilled negotiator and presenter to “sell” the sheer power of Firefly’s return. Any presentation needs to encompass at a minimum in some polished format the following:
1. The strength of DVD sales for a show that lasted only a rather erratically aired 13 episodes through the absolute worst timeslot on primetime TV (Friday evening is intrinsically NOT a good Ratings night for primetime), in the middle of the World Series, out of sequence( airing the pilot after the first episode for a start), and in spite of absolutely the most lackluster and forgettable marketing and advertising campaign in TV show history. Universal already bought this point, but it bears refreshing in their memory to set the stage for what’s to come.
2. Show them the breakdown of how well Serenity with what little it had in the way of advertising (outside of Sci-Fi) and marketing. For a word of mouth or “viral” advertising/marketing campaign (read slothful, lazy, and cheap for Advertising/Marketing execs) and the testimonials of conversion of large numbers of people (very deeply and very quickly with some special focus on those who love this show that were ambivalent toward or hated Sci-fi as a rule before watching Serenity or Firefly). Testimonials about the die-hard dedication of the fans would work nicely here as well as some figures about the exponential growth of the fan base in terms of recent DVD sales on the series in the wake of the movie. Include data on the sales and ranking of Firefly at Amazon.com and elsewhere worldwide sorted by region (Canada, Australia, USA, everywhere); make liberal comparisons between the relative standings of Star Wars III and Lost compared to Firefly as and when appropriate.
3. A free copy of both the series and the movie on DVD in the hands of the deciding execs in advance of the presentation to watch in order to soften them up and possibly convert them to our cause. Quality speaks for itself.
If we are solely and directly in charge, then the picture changes slightly, because we need Joss to coordinate with us to set up the new company, invest enough in it to make it public, buy lots of shares to give it leveraging power, collaborate/convince Sci-fi to pick it up (presentation points above + profit potential or just money), advertise on Sci-fi and elsewhere to promote our series with at least a measure of Sci-fi’s help, and through our shares, merchandising, etc. reap the benefits of Firefly's success on Scifi at a good timeslot. Remember we are buying shares in Firefly directly so profits will be repatriated to those of us who invested periodically in the form of dividends and company growth. Naturally Joss needs to be the one in charge of getting the company set up (with qualified help, of course) for the fans to invest in the first place so that’s the first step. Naturally Joss needs to be made aware of the idea and I don’t have his e-mail or even know if he reads e-mails from fans. Perhaps, we could in a coordinated fashion get the world to Joss and see what he makes of th
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I've been looking for some form of contact address for Whedon, and I haven't found one yet; however, another possibility might be to try to contact Joss via one of the cast members. I would think they're more likely to have a fan club mailing address, and I've heard they're all still in contact with Joss and Tim. I'll confess to being new to this site, so I'm not completely familiar with what's been done to try and get the series back on T.V. Has there been any sort of organized letter writing campaign to the Sci-Fi channel? I heard in a podcast that both Joss and Tim have offices at the WB (?) network. Maybe that would be a good place to try and contact them with your proposal.
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IMPERIALKNIGHT, The business model that you are proposing is one that is being done right now. An independent film called Billy Dead is trying to get made using funds from a single purpose corporation which is selling stock in the movie. The company handling the stock sale is called Civilian Capital. Their website is www.civilian.com. I don't know how well they are doing raising the $$$$ since all of the articles I can find are 2yrs old. If they have success it would definitely add some strength to your proposition.
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I don't think it can be financed by fans alone - you need a big media company to pay for it. They tried it with Enterprise but only got pledges for $3m of the $30m they need.
Don't give up on Serenity - it is yet to be released in most of Europe and on DVD.
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I've been thinking along the same lines as to the financing and the pay-per-episode type of model. Assuming that FOX does not still own the TV broadcast rights -- and you can still possibly do a direct-to-DVD type of release, or just film -- there are a few issues to be considered:
1) Joss may not want to do Firefly/Serenity anymore. Yes, there are still stories, yes, it's a Verse we love but what if Joss is too busy/tired/over committed? Would you accept/invest in a production without Joss' brain and the crew's commitment? IPOs and shareholders have some type of guarantee -- what would we get?
2) I think it'll work best if the "shareholders" are partners with Universal. It could work like public television where there's matching $. If the fanbase under this scheme raises 5 million, then Universal matches it and we get 10 million. What can Joss do with 10 million? That's potentially 10 one-hour episodes or one very small movie. In order to get $5 million, you're asking for $10 out of 500,000 people ($1/episode) or $100 out of 50,000 people ($10/episode). How many fans are there out there? If you take the gross of the movie divide by average movie price and take into consideration repeat viewings, then average maybe 2,000,000 fans worldwide. How many of them would pay in this model for new episodes -- Haken start a new poll!
3) Shareholder implies profit. How do you redistribute any potential profits for this enterprise? If no profits ie., from DVD sales then it's not a corporation really.
I think the above are things that can be resolved and this type of pay-per-episode model is/will be coming soon. If ABC/Disney is charging $2 for yesterday's episode of Lost, what's to stop them from charging another premium for the next UNAIRED episode of Lost the day before it airs on TV? Go a little further, you like Lost? How about buying into another series being produced by J. J. Abrams? I pay over $50/month for cable TV and usually there's absolutely NOTHING I want to watch. I should be able to pay for content that I want.
If anyone has a pipeline to Joss' ear, then it's an intersting experiment. Any projects with this type of model would defnitely need a name like Joss' and a fan base like ours.
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Not sure if there is another thread to discuss this, but I think those that decided how and when to release Serenity into theaters made a bad decision. I am a new Firefly fan and wanted to see all of the episodes prior to seeing the movie. (Yes I could have bought the series DVD, but chose not to. I will be getting it now.). Anyway, I could see the writing on the wall a couple of weeks after it was released and saw it disappearing from theaters (I had to go way out of my way to find a theater that still had it), so I decided to go and see the movie before it was gone. (Great movie and a lot of people do not know what they are missing!) Well, while at the movies I found out a lot of the people there were also waiting to see all of the episodes before seeing the movie, but also figured they had to get to a theater before it was gone. I am wondering how many others did the same elsewhere and as a result have now missed the movie in theaters (as far as I could tell, the last episode recently aired on 11/4). I really think they should have waited to release it:
1. To catch those that were waiting to see all of the episodes.
2. To release it at a time that there weren't several other movies being released.
Anyway, I hope there is life after Serenity. Maybe DVD sales will give it a boost, kind of like it did for Family Guy.
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Quote:
Originally posted by shirlockc:
I've been thinking along the same lines as to the financing and the pay-per-episode type of model. Assuming that FOX does not still own the TV broadcast rights -- and you can still possibly do a direct-to-DVD type of release, or just film -- there are a few issues to be considered:
1) Joss may not want to do Firefly/Serenity anymore. Yes, there are still stories, yes, it's a Verse we love but what if Joss is too busy/tired/over committed? Would you accept/invest in a production without Joss' brain and the crew's commitment? IPOs and shareholders have some type of guarantee -- what would we get?
2) I think it'll work best if the "shareholders" are partners with Universal. It could work like public television where there's matching $. If the fanbase under this scheme raises 5 million, then Universal matches it and we get 10 million. What can Joss do with 10 million? That's potentially 10 one-hour episodes or one very small movie. In order to get $5 million, you're asking for $10 out of 500,000 people ($1/episode) or $100 out of 50,000 people ($10/episode). How many fans are there out there? If you take the gross of the movie divide by average movie price and take into consideration repeat viewings, then average maybe 2,000,000 fans worldwide. How many of them would pay in this model for new episodes -- Haken start a new poll!
3) Shareholder implies profit. How do you redistribute any potential profits for this enterprise? If no profits ie., from DVD sales then it's not a corporation really.
I think the above are things that can be resolved and this type of pay-per-episode model is/will be coming soon. If ABC/Disney is charging $2 for yesterday's episode of Lost, what's to stop them from charging another premium for the next UNAIRED episode of Lost the day before it airs on TV? Go a little further, you like Lost? How about buying into another series being produced by J. J. Abrams? I pay over $50/month for cable TV and usually there's absolutely NOTHING I want to watch. I should be able to pay for content that I want.
If anyone has a pipeline to Joss' ear, then it's an intersting experiment. Any projects with this type of model would defnitely need a name like Joss' and a fan base like ours.
Paying as you go or adopting a Public Television model of money gathering where fans must continually pay a target value with the network picking up the rest simply feels chaotic and unreliable to me. It MIGHT work, perhaps, but remember those annoying fund-raising drives that appear all too frequently on Public Television? I wouldn't want Firefly to suffer the degrading ignominy of continually begging for enough money simply to survive. The cast, writing, and direction are simply too fine to impose such a hand to mouth existence. My plan calls either for Firefly to survive as an independent entity (with its own shares, merchandise, etc.) allied with Scifi in the sense that Scifi serves as the vehicle for Firefly's return or as part of a direct collaboration with Scifi by "selling" Scifi execs on the power of Firefly's return(see my Nov 6th post for details). The latter approach operates under some minimal presentational guidelines designed to not only convince them to fund Firefly's return but advertise it sufficiently to best realize the untapped potential of this unique diamond in the rough and doing away with the necessity of this word of mouth stuff for good. After all, I don't see anyone trying to convert people to see Lost or (with somewhat less relevance) Star Wars III - do you? Quality speaks for itself. For Firefly to have done as well as it has in the marketplace for a series that only lasted 13 episodes to a resurgence into a major motion picture by the very people who OWN Scifi in the first place makes this a very easy sale.
1. & 2. As for Joss not wanting to "uncancel" a series he, his cast, crew (not to mention all of us) love is to ignore the allure of vindicating his artistic vision, and the gains his and our indomi
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I think the only way to get Firefly back on the air will be for it to sell more DVD boxsets than anyone else. It worked for Family Guy. I am buying as many as I can to give as Christmas gifts this year, because I want as many people as possible to at least see the show. There is no doubt in my mind that once someone sees the show, they will be a fan. Buy as many as you can, wherever you can.
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