COULD they relaunch the series in 10 years?

POSTED BY: danfan
UPDATED: Monday, July 26, 2004 21:24
VIEWED: 7570
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ECGORDON

Saturday, July 24, 2004 8:07 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Pyrophorus:
I'm seriously thinking of getting rid of cable and just living off the dvd's I get and downloads of good tv I can't get in Canada.

And where will DVDs of good shows come from if talented people like Joss abandon TV?

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

PURPLEBELLY

Saturday, July 24, 2004 9:20 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ecgordon:
And where will DVDs of good shows come from if talented people like Joss abandon TV?

That's the sort of discussion I was trying to encourage with my previous post; my approach was probably too European.
So, is there a market for a short season of, say, six tv shows expanded to, say, thirteen for DVD release? I think of this as the Wonderfalls model as that at least has a completed arc, unlike Firefly. If this can break even for ideas that don't reach sufficient audiences for extended series or movies, it may provide an alternative to the existing 13/22 weeks or bust. I am only guessing, because my homeland's market is very different - small, poorly funded, plagued by reality tv ...

MISGUIDED BY VOICES

Saturday, July 24, 2004 9:43 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by PurpleBelly:
So, is there a market for a short season of, say, six tv shows expanded to, say, thirteen for DVD release?

My guess would be we might see more of the HBO model for the future - smaller runs, big gaps inbetween seasons. Less investment for the broadcaster if the show doesn't work (and more incentive not to pull the plug after 3 episodes), and enables you to get the real cream of the crop of actors who can also go and do movies as they have more free time - a 22-24 episode season essentially seems to take up 8-9 months of the year, which is why some many people become typecast doing them.

As to whether we will ever see Firefly back on TV, I'm willing to give up on that - I'll take another story in the universe run by Minear and Whedon if they wish to do it, but I'm hoping that Serenity launches all these guys careers - Tudyk is on the cusp right now, and the other have to have a more than decent shot.

Serenity has to open big, because we all know that a few weeks later Star Wars will steal all the oxygen at the box office, but wouldn't it be cool if reviews of SW were able to hark back to a few weeks prior, when they saw a decent SF movie with heart and soul, and not just explosions and CGI monsters?

"I threw up on your bed"

CARDIE

Saturday, July 24, 2004 9:50 PM

I think all parties involved decided that a Firefly movie franchise was possible, but there wasn't any way that Firefly could be viable on television. All those pesky negotiations came off because there had to be a consensus among Fox, Universal and Mutant Enemy that Firefly would be transformed into a big screen rather than a small screen property. Browncoats seeing the BDM numerous times could make it a $100 million grosser and still not provide the basis for Nielsen ratings any higher than it was getting on FOX.

Once Star Trek went to the movies and had a big success, they didn't immediately do a new television series with the original cast. They kept making movies, which were so successful there was a spinoff tv series about ten years after the first film. Whether the Firefly 'verse is as congenial to that model, only time will tell.

A new tv series starting up ten years from now with the original cast as there original characters would never work, imo. Besides, Joss may be a big film director by that time and not want to go back to TV. Or he could have developed two or three other series during that decade. I'll be grateful for the 6-8 extra hours when we could very well have had none.

Cardie

DANFAN

Sunday, July 25, 2004 12:04 AM

The comment regarding the cast becoming too big for series TV ("Tudyk on the cusp...") feels dead right. As soon as I read that quote, I thought of the cult 1984 movie "The Adventures Buckaroo Bonzai Across the Eighth Dimension." Folks had wildly different opinions about the movie, but the makers of the movie clearly had sequel on the brain when they made it. The closing credits said something like "coming soon: Buckaroo Bonzai vs. the World Crime League" or something like that. The sequel never materialized.

One reason may have been the small crowd, cult appeal of the film. The other reason was probably the relatively non-famous cast at the time: Peter Weller, John Lithgow, Jeff Goldblum, Ellen Barkin. Christopher Lloyd. By the time a sequel could have been mounted, these folks had moved beyond cult films into mainstream fame in the later 80's. The cost of getting that cast back together would have been too much for a cult sequel to a cult film.

We may be witnessing the start of the same thing. With a couple Joss Whedon scripts and the talent the cast brings to the table, they may all become too famous (i.e., expensive) for television.

If so, it couldn't happen to a more deserving crowd in my opinion...

Danfan
"The sun is riz, the sun is set...
And here I is, in Texas yet."

PYROPHORUS

Sunday, July 25, 2004 2:41 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by ecgordon:
Quote:
Originally posted by Pyrophorus:
I'm seriously thinking of getting rid of cable and just living off the dvd's I get and downloads of good tv I can't get in Canada.

And where will DVDs of good shows come from if talented people like Joss abandon TV?

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

If you read my original post fully, DvD's of good shows could simply be released straight to dvd in miniseries format.

MISGUIDED BY VOICES

Sunday, July 25, 2004 8:46 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Pyrophorus:
If you read my original post fully, DvD's of good shows could simply be released straight to dvd in miniseries format.

Not sure that the economics support it - every TV shopw is made at a loss AFAIK, with the money made back if and when it hits syndication - the fact that studios are waking up to the DVD potential of even "failed" shows like Firefly may soften these numbers.

Worrying thought - you have a cult show with a big fan following, but it isn't doing the stellar numbers you want - on the evidence of Firefly and (probably) Wonderfalls, you can actually generate a more profitable outcome by Sh**canning the show and releasing a DVD with missing episodes.

"I threw up on your bed"

SERENITYSMECHANIC

Sunday, July 25, 2004 10:59 PM

Okay, so I've been thinking about how the series could come back and this is the best I could do.
First, the BDM has to be a great success, not just profitable but blockbuster. This would cause excitement all around the halls of NBC/Universal. With that there would be the possibility that they would be willing to spend a lot of money to buy the Firefly contract from Fox. If they were to do that then they could start redeveloping the series. They then would have a few options show the show on NBC, Sci-Fi, or USA. This is just my opinion but I don't think the show would survive if it ran on NBC, so that takes that out. I would not want to send the show to Sci-Fi for a number of reasons- they have a tendency to interfere with shows to make them appeal to the "geek," they seem to cancel the better shows they have, etc. This leaves USA, which I believe would be a great place for the show, because 1. they have proven that they can make good shows already and give them (for the most part) the advertising they deserve and 2. they from what I can tell don't interfere with creative vision. Another good thing about being on USA would be, and don't get mad about this, that our beloved show would have seasons of 14-18 episodes, which we know for a fact is a good amount of time for the minds behind Firefly to tell a good story. Even though I hate that the show is over, I like the way Objects In Space ends the show because it gives the sense that one chapter has closed(the everyone finally becomes a working unit chapter), and another one(the one where some of the questions get answered) is going to start.

I'm going to stop my rambling now and hope that all makes sense to everyone.

Serenity- the quality of being clear and free of storms or unpleasant change; shining bright and steady; marked by utter calm and unruffled repose or quietude

PYROPHORUS

Monday, July 26, 2004 4:11 AM

The only problem with it becoming a blockbuster is that they would not want to release a new series, they would simply milk out more movies (which isn't alltogether bad). Of course with movies theres a 1 to 3 year gap between them.

ANOTHERFIREFLYFAN

Monday, July 26, 2004 11:50 AM

I'm hoping that we won't have to wait that long. But my belief is that the series would pick up where the movies left off, in Firefly time, not in real life time. So it won't be 10 years later in the verse. Maybe a bit later, but not by that much.

Now we just need to put the cast into cryogenic freezing to prevent aging when they aren't working on the movies.

~AFf

Keep flying

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