Serenity

[laconicchick]

Yeah, I can agree with that. Every time I try to explain it to people, I'm all, "Well... it sounds dumb, but it's kind of a space western. No, but good! Well, it's by the creator of Buffy and Angel. Okay, that probably makes it sound worse. Just watch it. It's good!" But all the people I've shown it to (including my dumb friends with no taste who hate EVERYTHING I like) have really enjoyed it.

I think it's something you really have to watch to get, because looking at it from the outside, it just seems like another cheesy sci-fi movie/show. Which it kind of is, and mostly isn't.

[Laira]

In my opinion (and ONLY my opinion), the whole project is a miserable failure, and I can't figure out WHY. It's like even the FANS abandoned it. But WHY?

One of the things I really liked about Serenity is that it's one of the few films I've seen that started as a TV show/book/etc. but was mainly for the FANS, as opposed to being a movie to suck new people into the Firefly universe. As a fan, it was very satistfying to me.

You just answered your own question. The movie was set up in such a way that only a fan would understand what was going on or care about the characters. I saw the trailer in a theater full of folks who obviously hadn't seen Firefly and the reaction was head scratching and people muttering "I won't see that".

I think Universal thought the fans, specificaly the online fans, would spread the word but that didn't happen. Maybe online fans only spread the word to other online fans and didn't talk to Joe Public?

Since when is it the audience's responsibility to market a movie? Universal goofed big time if they thought that the fans of a show that lasted 11 eps on the air were going to be able to do the job of a professional marketing department.

Maybe Joe Public was more put off by someone trying to push a geeky sci fi movie?

Ya think? I know I was feeling the schadenfruede when Serenity tanked, primarily because I got tired of hearing how great it was even before the first trailer was shown.

[Witchie]

I think Universal goofed too. They should have marketed the film to all, instead of centering most of their advertising on people who were already fans of the show. But then again, I was already a fan and had waited anxiously for nearly a year to get the movie. I greatly enjoyed it, and isn't that what matters, that the people who paid their money got their money's worth.

[spiderwyman]

I agree that the film was terribly marketed, but there's also the little thing of it not only being a badly disjointed mess, with horrible acting, but also a badly disjointed mess with horrible acting that was too smug with its own inside-joke "fabulosity" to appeal to mainstream audiences who might have tried it.

Even the first scene in the film, in which they tried to explain the backstory, failed.
I am not shocked that the DVD has already fallen off the top ten after only two weeks in it:
Serenity Falls to # 14

And the whole "let the fans do the marketing" was just silly on Universal's part.
Kind of makes me feel like they simply dumped the film in theaters to try to make their investment back, but they had no faith in the film at all.
And by doing that, they actually lost a whole lot of money.

[Deleted]

On TVGuide online JW mentioned that if the show came back on it would be a prequel to Serenity. Which makes sense since he killed important characters. I'm not holding my breath.

I had a friend who didn't want to watch it but went to a Firefly party over the weekend(lots of girls there), they watched all the series plus the movie and now he is hooked. Just bought my copy of the DVD from Amazon, maybe my purchase will bump it up a few.

[mostlyharmless]

Kind of makes me feel like they simply dumped the film in theaters to try to make their investment back

Why else would a studio make a movie?

[spiderwyman]

mostlyharmless said:

Kind of makes me feel like they simply dumped the film in theaters to try to make their investment back

Why else would a studio make a movie?

To make a profit, which isn't the same as just making the budget back.
Maybe, just maybe, the studio could've made a profit at the box office if they had tried harder...but then again, I agree with MT, this property has no appeal beyond Browncoats.

[mostlyharmless]

The sad thing is that the performance of Serenity will reinforce the "If we want a movie to do well we must have big stars in it" menatlity, which will mean people like Tom Cruise will be able to keep on asking twenty mill a picture and the studios will pay it to make sure people will go see it.

Some genres like horror can do well without names but if you want to reach a general wide audience having a high concept that will grab people in itself or big stars will make a big difference. Even Star Wars had Alec Guiness. Maybe Whedon should have hired Lawrence Fishburn as the baddie?

[spiderwyman]

I remember some people even saying that this would be this generation's Star Wars.

admin said:

To make a profit, which isn't the same as just making the budget back.

Yeah...but what often happens is the studio realizes that the movie isn't going to be a hit and just tries to cut it's losses.

Yeah.
That's why the international branch of Universal cancelled so many of the scheduled theatrical openings of Serenity ...cutting their losses.
Not even Japan, which is allegedly a big Sci Fi market, got to see Serenity.

[Laira]

I think the real problem with the movie was the $40 million budget. I really don't think this sort of thing has enough of a built in audience to justify that much money (even though that's a relatively small budget for a film).

I agree. If you're going to make a theatrical release and expect it to be a hit, you can't skimp on the budget, not in this day and age where the sci-fi audience is used to top quality FX. Serenity looked good by TV standards, but by movie standards it looked cheap and cheesy.

Also, they should have recasted at least one or two roles to get a name, (i.e. Julia Stiles or Kirsten Dunst as River). That would have given the movie a 'hook'.