how much would firefly cost?

POSTED BY: Ariya
UPDATED: Saturday, January 3, 2004 21:23
VIEWED: 20634
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ARIYA

Wednesday, December 31, 2003 11:20 PM

Anyone know what the budget was per episode for Firefly? Just thinking today that every Firefly fan should contribute $10, and try and privately fund another episode. I need my fix, and soon rewatching the DVDs won't hack it anymore. There must be at least fifty thousand people world wide who really liked the show (I hope that is a low number). Can TV shows be privately financed?

Ariya

ZAPHODB

Wednesday, December 31, 2003 11:26 PM

Just a shade over 2 million per ep.

ZAPHODB

Wednesday, December 31, 2003 11:32 PM

And here's a little list I compiled a couple of months ago. It's good for comparison sakes.

Genre Show Budgets
Enterprise (2001)
$5,000,000 (per episode) (Season 2-7)
$3,500,000 (per episode)
$12,000,000 (pilot episode)
Star Trek TNG (1987)
$2,500,000 (per episode) (season 3-7)
$1,500,000 (per episode)
Star Trek DS9 (1993)
$4,000,000 (per episode) (Season 4-7)
$2,000,000 (per episode)
Star Trek Voyager (1995)
$3,500,000 (per episode) (Season 4-7)
$2,200,000 (Per Episode)
Stargate SG1 (1996)
$1,400,000 (per episode)
The X-Files (1993)
$1,500,000 (per episode - Canada)
$2,500,000 (per episode - US)
$66,000,000 (movie)
Space: Above and Beyond (1995)
$5,000,000 (per episode)
Star Trek TOS (1966)
$100,000 (per episode)
Babylon Five (1994)
$750,000 (per episode)
$900,000 (per episode) (Season 4-5)
Battlestar Galactica (1978)
$750,000 (per episode)
The Outer Limits (1995)
$1,100,000 (per episode, 7th season)
Buffy (1997)
$2,300,000 (per episode, 5th season)
Angel (1999)
$2,000,000 (per episode)
Firefly (2002)
$2,000,000 (per episode)
$10,000,000 (pilot episode)
Farscape (1999)
$1,500,000 (per episode)

JAYSEDAI

Thursday, January 1, 2004 1:10 AM

From what I understand $2 million an episode is only partially true. The actual cost of a specific episode was quite a bit less, somewhere in the range of 800k to 1.2 million, but Fox was amortizing the cost of the pilot (including set building and initial start up costs) into the individual episodes. So when people say that Firefly was canceled because it was too expensive, I don't tend to agree.

In fact, as I understand it, Fox's total investment in Firefly was about $32 million. Which works out to just over $2 million per hour of TV. Which, based in the quality, is a damn good deal if you ask me. I'd like to see a hollywood studio create a 11+ hour movie of that quality for $32 million. It would never happen!

So let's do the math. Firefly's average weekly viewership hovered around 4 million viewers. If 10% of the viewers agreed to pay $80 per season (15 episodes long) for the show to be produced direct to dvd. Shazzam! You've paid for your show.

Move the production to Canada, throw some advertisers on the DVD, and costs drop even further.

If this idea interests you, sign up for the Firefly subscriber mailing list at:

http://www.fireflymovie.com and click on direct to dvd.

Jeremy

ARIYA

Thursday, January 1, 2004 5:59 PM

well........the obstacles of course would be the necessity of rebuilding the set, so I imagine there would be significant start-up costs. But seriously, I kind of started this as a joke, but what would stop a plan like that from working? Do you think there are at least 300,000 people out there that would shell out $100 for another season? I would pay twice that without blinking.
Can it be done? Wouldn't it be a interesting day to hand about $30 million to Joss, and say "Go to town, we need more eps!"
Anyway, probably dreaming here, but does anyone think this is even vaguely possible?

Ariya

JAYSEDAI

Thursday, January 1, 2004 6:21 PM

I asked Joss about the idea at LA Con while he was signing an autograph for me. And his reply was "You know that might just be the future..."

Jeremy

ARIYA

Thursday, January 1, 2004 6:42 PM

Well.....I think so too really, given how effective straight to DVD could be. So how do we do it? If there are really three or four hundred thoundsand people out there who would fork over around $100 to see another season, how would one go about organizing such an effort? It seems to me that if the people who control our media are not willing to promote truly good storytelling, then it is up to the individual to make it happen. Personally, I turned off my cable, and now I buy the shows I want on DVD anyway. So how can we rally a whole mess of people with the money and inclination?

Ariya

LORDJ

Thursday, January 1, 2004 6:50 PM

The price comparisons were really interesting, although if price (cost/benefit) wasn't the reason Fox cancelled firefly then what do you all think it was? FF may not have cost much in comparison to other scifi series (although I think the comparisons to ST are a little off as all those series were/are produced independently of networks and are financially analagous to syndicated shows as I understand it); but I wonder how that compares to the rest of Fox's line up of poo sitcoms and double poo reality shows?

Maybe if there is enough interest created by the buzz over the DVDs to translate into a big movie perhaps that will generate enough interest for a return to the series. But if the $80 thing is the way to go I'm down :)

GAIJIN

Thursday, January 1, 2004 11:03 PM

That would be an interesting way for TV shows to go in the future...funded by the fans.

SLOWSMURF

Thursday, January 1, 2004 11:03 PM

Not that I think this would happen, but remember if an entire season was produced it would be no trouble to sell it in stores too afterwords for more sales.

Though in all seriousness, this won't happen, no matter how popular the show. There simply aren't enough people who would fork over that kind of cash.

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