$35 Million Budget for Serenity

POSTED BY: mojoeca
UPDATED: Monday, March 8, 2004 19:52
VIEWED: 8991
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MOJOECA

Saturday, March 6, 2004 5:53 PM

Tim Minear talked to zap2it.com about Wonderfalls. "Serenity" came up, with the site reporting the budget was $35 mill. That sounds reasonable considering "Underworld" was made for less than that. The movie was a crapfest, but the fx were boffo.

Quote:
Last fall, he was executive producer, with creator Joss Whedon, of the highly anticipated FOX outer-space Western "Firefly," which premiered on Friday night at 8 p.m. ET in the fall of 2002. It didn't last long.

"We like to think of it as the night that we promote 13-episode DVD sets," Minear quips about the quickly axed series, which will return as a [bold]just-greenlit $35 million feature film[/bold] from Universal called "Serenity," with Whedon writing and directing.

"I won't be working on 'Serenity,'" Minear says, "but I'll be first in line to see it. But Joss better pay for my ticket. Just sayin'."

http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,271|86782|1|,00.html

--- Joe

MAKEROFPATHS

Saturday, March 6, 2004 6:32 PM

Hmmmm. $35 million eh? Let's see, the tv pilot was $10 million and that turned out real good. 35 mill for another tv pilot? Yup, that ought'a go well.

Yeah, Underworld was made for $20 mill, I believe. But they did shoot it (mostly) in the Czech Republic and (partly) France, I think.

GATOZHIAN

Saturday, March 6, 2004 7:46 PM

Ya know, thats almost as much as was spent on the ENTIRE "season" of Firefly. Makes ya think don't it...

Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take Wash and Book from me...

CANTTAKESKY

Saturday, March 6, 2004 8:08 PM

Entertainment Weekly (March 12th issue, pg 24) has a small blurb on Firefly. It also mentioned the $35 million budget. (Woohoo!)

The article also says, "{Whedon} promises new thrills for fans--200,000 of whom bought the series on DVD." I assume that means they sold 200K copies of the DVD, which is the first time I have heard a figure on how well the DVD sales are doing.

Can't Take My Gorram Sky

ECMORGAN69

Saturday, March 6, 2004 9:12 PM

I hope they stick to the budget. As a movie first-timer, I'd hate to see JW pull a Kevin Costner and go millions over budget, thereby creating all kinds of negative buzz and creaming the HSX FRFLY stock price

They can have my "Firefly" DVDs when they pry them from my cold, dead fingers....

Oh yeah, you, FOX TV!!

PARADIGMSHIFT

Sunday, March 7, 2004 6:23 AM

Oh, I am salivating to think of all they could do with that type of money. Special effects . . . Inara's costumes . . . mmm . . . I'm back.

Much coolness could go on, and, since Joss is used to working on a television type udget, I'm not thinking that over-spending will be an issue. Seems like the type who knows how to stretch a dollar until you could bounce on it.

In other words: rock me, this news just keeps getting better and better.

"Once, just once, I'd like to be able to land someplace and say, 'Behold, I am the Archangel Gabriel.'"
"I fail to see the humor in that situation, Doctor."
"Naturally. You could hardly claim to be an angel with tose pointed ears, Mister Spock. But say you landed someplace with a pitchfork . . ."
-McCoy and Spock

OUTLANDER

Sunday, March 7, 2004 7:20 AM

The rule of thumb is that a film has to make three times its budget world wide to be considered a success. Case in point Starship Troopers cost $90 million to make and it made less than $200 million world wide so it was not considered a success and that is the reason why it has taken so long for them to make a sequel and why the sequel is being released straight to video.

To be considered a success Serenity will have to make $105 million world wide. Though if it gets close to that figure as illustrated by Starship Troopers it will possibly return in some other format, like maybe a TV series. Also something interesting to note is that after they released the Starship Troopers movie they made a short lived computer animated Starship Troopers series called Roughnecks.

SUCCATASH

Sunday, March 7, 2004 7:58 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by outlander:
The rule of thumb is that a film has to make three times its budget world wide to be considered a success. Case in point Starship Troopers cost $90 million to make and it made less than $200 million world wide so it was not considered a success...

I think the world is changing fast and so is the rule of thumb. What about movie rentals and DVD sales? That could have been what brought it back. Seems to be the trend in the industry, lately.

Starship Troopers continues to make money every day. It's safe to assume the total gross revenue is MUCH higher than the original $200 million it earned in the theaters.

SUCCATASH

Sunday, March 7, 2004 8:04 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by ParadigmShift:
Oh, I am salivating to think of all they could do with that type of money. Special effects . . . Inara's costumes . . . mmm . . .

Maybe Alan (Wash) and Ron (Book) are thinking, "How about paying us the same wage as everyone else!"

And that's why they haven't signed yet?

OUTLANDER

Sunday, March 7, 2004 10:18 AM

SUCCATASH, I think you are probably right. I also think that Serenity sould have little trouble reaching $100 million world wide.

It would be interesting to know how much money it will have to make at the cinema and on DVD for the powers that be to greenlight a new series or a follow up movie.

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