Ooooo New interview by Joss the Boss

POSTED BY: Chindi
UPDATED: Monday, January 9, 2006 05:50
VIEWED: 17182
PAGE 4 of 5

BWARE42

Thursday, January 5, 2006 1:34 PM

I'd love to see the wording in the Firefly series agreement. I'm assuming the attorney that drafted it wasn't a complete idiot, so I'm guessing they didn't just tie up the name "Firefly" but they also included Serenity, the characters, the 'verse, etc...

If not, a "Serenity" series could be made. I'd love (and prefer) to see it come back on TV. Films are cool, but the stories need to be more epic in feature length films. You won't get the detail and feel of episodes like "Ariel" "Trash" "Out of Gas" etc...on film. The best we could hope for in film is another epic story arc like making Blue Sun the real evil force behind River and how they take up the chase in hunting her down. I'd much rather see characters develop and the story take it's time to develop...

Just my two cents.

Some people juggle geese!

NOTIFY: Y  | REPLY  | REPLY WITH QUOTE  | PERMALINK  | TOP  | HOME

MATTIE

Thursday, January 5, 2006 7:25 PM

Thanks Psolaris! I just watched it and it makes me laugh every time! I love that Peter pauses after every name to emphasize it.
Can you believe that Fox cancelled 29 shows in 2-3 years?! NO one had a chance. Duh, stupid, stupid executives!

Wacky fun!

NOTIFY: Y  | REPLY  | REPLY WITH QUOTE  | PERMALINK  | TOP  | HOME

HARTMEISTER

Thursday, January 5, 2006 7:49 PM

Fox has a TV network and every TV network can point to shows that it gave the ax to the wrong way. Gilligan's Island was axed simply because CBS executive William Paley was horrified what would happen if his wife found out that her favorite series, Gunsmoke, was canceled. I think it is pretty safe to say that Gilligan's Island has been a much better syndication property than Gunsmoke.

Hollywood has many squabbles and it is not inconceivable that ten years from now if different management was running Fox, Joss might make another show for them. After all, Fox didn't hurt him, the people who ran Fox hurt him.

Of course Fox owns the rights to a TV series of Firefly. I think we assume that Fox would want a pretty penny for those rights but that may not be what Fox is thinking of.

Fox never wanted Firefly because Firefly wasn't the sort of show that Fox wanted. Fox wanted edgy, youth oriented shows and FF was not that. I think the lack of financial success for the BDM probably confirms their opinions that cancellation of Firefly was not a mass market TV show. They don't think they new "Star Trek", they probably think they had a new "Dr. Who".

Also we forget that Fox is not a cable channel but a network. Most of its network is of stations that they don't own and who can bolt to be come a UPN or WB affiliate. They couldn't justify keeping FF alive for several seasons just for DVD sales because the affliates don't make any money off those sales. If the affiliates feel that Fox is cramming product down their throat simply to get money off ancillary revenue (like DVDs) they'll just bolt to a more "responsive" network.

If Fox's goal was simply to punish Joss & Co. for making a "bad" show and to prove that they make the right decision all along to cancel them they wouldn't have:

1) Made a DVD set with lots of extras (like commentaries)
2) Allowed Joss to shop the show to other networks
3) Allowed for the Serenity movie to be made

Fox doesn't want to kill Firefly. They just don't want to spend and money that they can't get tenfold in DVD sales. What Fox probably wants is for some other company to pay the production and advertising costs of a new series that would be free advertising for their old series.

So let's say that Sci-Fi channel is proposing a new FF/Serenity TV movie or TV series. Now Fox knows that any new series will boost DVD sales of the earlier series, it was proved with the release of the Serenity movie. Despite all the extras with the DVD its pretty obvious that what sold the DVD big time was the release of the Serenity movie.

I'm guessing what Fox would want would be:

1) Any commercials on the series/movie hawking DVD s would have to include a plug for the original series

2) The new series/movies would have to named "Serenity" or something other than "Firefly" to differentiate them the original Firefly episodes.

3) Future DVDs would include a free (to Fox) ad/coupon for the original series

They may also "unofficially" ask in the background for a halt to the constant tirade against Fox by Joss, various members of the crew and cast. I wouldn't be surprised to see a sort of make-up where Fox admits it made a mistake and Joss (or one of the BDH's such as Nathan) asks fans to forgive Fox and let bygones by bygones. I don't think they really believe that Joss will go back to making series for them in the near future but they may not like the negative publicity that Joss's grumblings give to other creative types in Hollywood.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by christhecynic:
To those who know what they are talking about, and only to them, can Fox hold the rights hostage?

If I remember correctly they publicly stated that they would not stop another network from picking up the show. That's advertising and hope that the show would be picked up affected the DVD sales.

I have been told that the penalties for false advertising are fairly severe, even for something like Fox. Hence the weasel words and fine print in commercials. I was under the impression Fox was very ex

NOTIFY: Y  | REPLY  | REPLY WITH QUOTE  | PERMALINK  | TOP  | HOME