Serenity

[Witchie]

If there had been a recast, fans of Firefly would have been really upset. The reason we loved the show and fought for it was due to the incredible chemistry of the cast. I honestly couldn't imagine anyone else playing those roles. And, having a big name cast doesn't always ensure a hit. Examples: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (Jude, Angelina, and Gwyneth), Catwoman (Halle Berry and Sharon Stone), Vanilla Sky (Tom Cruise). People will see what they want to see, regardless of who's the billed star. It's a matter of taste.

[laconicchick]

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 audienceswho might have tried it.

I disagree. I went to the movie after having only seen the pilot episode (and that was three months before I saw the movie), and the movie inspired me to buy the DVDs. I now love the show (and I am not a sci-fi fan). I knew about Firefly beforehand, yes, but I thought it was pretty ridiculous with the space western and the crazy fans and whatnot. So I went from thinking it was over-rated to loving it.

It also went over very well with reviewers, as has been noted here. All the reviews I read (and I was reading four or more papers at work at the time, so I read a lot of them) were positive.

this property has no appeal beyond Browncoats

I'm going to have to disagree again here, because I've shown the DVDs to four different friends and they all loved the show. They weren't (and neither was I) Browncoats. And two of those friends generally like nothing but chick flicks.

However, the same two were disturbed by the "scariness" and "goriness" of Serenity... and they're 21. It's rated PG-13 in the States. Okay!

THe thing is, the fans of Firefly weren't enough to make this a hit at the theatres. I think if there had been a couple of name actors in it, the fans would have been upset, but you might have had more people going to see it.

But would those few more people have been cancelled out by fans who were too furious at recasts to go see it? And do you think the cast would have agreed to come back if some roles were recast?

[realitybug]

I'm going to have to disagree again here, because I've shown the DVDs to four different friends and they all loved the show.

How many of them went to see the movie when it came out?

[slanderous]

I have to admit that I've always wondered how much of the box office was repeat business from Browncoats and other uber-fans. (One of which was my brother, who went, like, three times.)

Is sci-fi (quality and personality discussions notwithstanding for a moment) that hard a sell still? It certainly seems as if sci-fi and fantasy (including comic book adaptations) are on the upswing, so it doesn't surprise me that expectations for this film's success would have been optimistic. Or maybe not, seeing as how the Star Trek enterprise has been a commercial failure on t.v. and the "big screen" of late--?

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witchie said:

If there had been a recast, fans of Firefly would have been really upset. The reason we loved the show and fought for it was due to the incredible chemistry of the cast. I honestly couldn't imagine anyone else playing those roles. And, having a big name cast doesn't always ensure a hit. Examples: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (Jude, Angelina, and Gwyneth), Catwoman (Halle Berry and Sharon Stone), Vanilla Sky (Tom Cruise). People will see what they want to see, regardless of who's the billed star. It's a matter of taste.

I gotta agree, a recast would have only infuriated the core fans and probably not improved the movie's BO performance.

I wish I knew why this movie didn't do better. It was an entertaining film with an attractive, charismatic cast. I think part of the problem was the fact that Serenity/Firefly doesn't lend itself well to "sound bites"...it's kind of hard to explain the core sci-fi/western concept, and the humor is a little too offbeat to sell in a line or two. The trailers I saw early last year were TERRIBLE. If I hadn't been a FIrefly fan already, I never would have gone to see it based on the trailer.

OT: Hey Witchie, are you the same Witchie that I've seen on TrekBBS?

[laconicchick]

How many of them went to see the movie when it came out?

None, because I showed them the DVDs after the movie was already gone from theatres. But three of the four watched the movie: one on DVD and two in our second-run campus theatre (they were the ones scared by the "goriness," so no, they won't be watching it again). But this comment was in response to "this property has no appeal beyond Browncoats," so I think my remark still stands. It can appeal to people who know nothing about it.

I think the movie had a very different tone than the show, which is in some ways unfortunate. I don't know if it helped or hindered the movie, though.

[Witchie]

That would be me, turangalee. Trip/TPolers right?

I thought the darker tone of the film suited the characters better. These people are living on the fringe of society, hunted constantly by the Alliance. It shouldn't have been all giggles and sunshine. So for me, the darkness worked.

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witchie said:

That would be me, turangalee. Trip/TPolers right?

Yep! Small world! ;D

(and OT, but I can't wait for the day that Connor Trinneer is a big enough star to get his own thread on CPMCoG... )

Topic? If we're hypothetically discussing big-name recasts, the one that might possibly fly (at least in my mind) is Joaquin Phoenix as Simon. But my mind can happily picture Kitten in most anything...

[Maddiemoo]

Okay, the thought of Joaquin Phoenix as Simon just made my head explode out of pure lust. I love Sean Maher like crazy, but if they absolutely, positively, 100% HAD to recast, um, yeah, Joaquin would be nice.

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slanderous said:

Is sci-fi (quality and personality discussions notwithstanding for a moment) that hard a sell still? It certainly seems as if sci-fi and fantasy (including comic book adaptations) are on the upswing, so it doesn't surprise me that expectations for this film's success would have been optimistic. Or maybe not, seeing as how the Star Trek enterprise has been a commercial failure on t.v. and the "big screen" of late--?

It seems to me that it's more a sort of residual snobbery that exists around science-fiction / fantasy - an attitude that it's somehow unworthy (unless you're adapting a 'worthy' text like the Tolkien / Narnia books, or just making a superhero movie). Most sci-fi seems to have 'cult audience' stamped on it from the beginning, it seems.