Serenity = Sci Fi BOMB!
Wow, it only made like 10 million this weekend, like a 1/4 of it’s budget back. YIKES. Now, the followers of Whedon will only say good things about it… but from the trailer, and the reviews I’ve read, the thing is obviously a stink tank.
I never liked Firefly, and have never been a big fan of Joss Whedon, I must admit. I never got the people who followed “Buffy” religiously either—- When Firefly came on, I was a bit peeved, because Farscape had just been canned, and it actually had great ratings on SciFi but the new boss there just didn’t like it. After being spoiled by Farscape with awesome sci-fi goodness and Henson workshop puppetry— Man, Firefly just never did it for me. Everytime I bring this subject up, I get a few e-mails from angry Whedon follower people… but I just have different taste in sci-fi I guess.
I guess it didn’t do it for a lot of people, judging by that box office. I thought it was going to be some new “Star Wars” following type thing? I hope he doesn’t stink up Superman… Please don’t stink up Superman…
~WARNING TO SERENITY FANS, MAJOR SPOILERS IN OUR COMMENTS SECTION~
October 2nd, 2005 at 2:55 pm
Fair comment on the box office - it’s disappointing. Each to their own as far as taste in sci-fi goes, but I have to comment on what you said about it getting bad reviews - I think most people accept www.rottentomatoes.com as being fairly representative of all the reviews and it’s currently 79% fresh.
Ive been as pleasantly surprised by the reviews as Ive been disappointed by the box office, but who knows, word of mouth seems to be really good.
PS the trailer really doesn’t do it justice
October 2nd, 2005 at 3:38 pm
BLASPHEMER!!!
(just kidding)
October 2nd, 2005 at 3:41 pm
I really liked it. I saw it the other day with some friends, I wasn’t expecting much of it at all, but it ended up being really enjoyable, and I never saw an episode of the TV show. Odd that the reviews you’ve seen were mostly bad; MSN, IGN, rotten tomatoes, and several other places gave it pretty high marks. It really is tanking at the box office, though.
October 2nd, 2005 at 4:20 pm
I actually think that a 10 mill start is fine. We are on the summer movie down swing right now and you are talking about a movie that has no star power, and its major ad campain consisted of tons of prescreenings to get the word out.
I am a fan of the series myself and only though that the movie was OK. It felt like a season finally to me, a long episode and I guess I was expecting more. Although I am pleased to see that the story is continuing. They only need to make 80 mil world wide and they will make another.
October 2nd, 2005 at 6:34 pm
This was always gooing to end up a cult film, much like Blade Runner (which tanked at the box office due to crappy scripting.)
DVD sales will probably sky rocket eventually due to the vastly enormous geek market out there. What with the likeable characters and Joss Whedonage. Plus, I’ll probably go see it and I only go to the cinemas when there’s a blue moon out there.
Note: I’m not talking about the Director’s cut of Blade Runner, which kicks much replicant ass.
October 2nd, 2005 at 8:07 pm
I am a firefly fan, but was totally unimpressed by the movie. Why the fuck did he kill Wash in such a lame way?
October 2nd, 2005 at 9:48 pm
I never saw Firefly nor was I ever a big fan of Buffy . . .
But the trailer looks like a preview for a Fox or WB tv show. It just doesn’t seem very cinematic. There’s fancy hair and slick one liners and a sexy girl that kicks people to death. I don’t see why anyone but a fan would see it.
With that said, Farscape was awesome. The third season was one of my favorite sci-fi epics ever (and the fourth season was one of the worse). I’d probably get all defensive if someone made a movie of MY favorite show . . . even if it actually just sucked balls.
October 2nd, 2005 at 10:14 pm
Yeah, i guess people who are fans of Whedon in general will support this to the dying end… but he’s no sci-fi writer. I remember the pain of trying to watch the acting on the show– that was the main thing that drilled into my head after being spoiled by Scorpious and Crychton on Farscape– you actually gave a crap about these characters and wanted to know what was going to happen next….
October 2nd, 2005 at 10:17 pm
Admittedly, I didnt like Farscape when it first came out.. i thought it was just a sexpot show– which WAS a big part of it– but man, that show was warped.
October 2nd, 2005 at 10:41 pm
To me, the trailers for it showed something that looked like a made-for-tv-movie-stage/set. I don’t like that look and I won’t be seeing the movie.
October 2nd, 2005 at 10:56 pm
I never got into the original airing of the show, but that was because of logistical reasons (work schedule etc). They re-broadcast them on SciFi recently and I caught a few of them. It was “nice”, in that I would watch it from time to time but not make sure I was home to see it (or Tivo it).
I couldn’t differentiate between the promos for the re-broadcasts of Firefly and the ads for the movie. Maybe I’m stupid. No — I am definitely stupid. But it seems that if the studio was serious about this movie they would have spent some money promoting it.
And, if Paris Hilton was in it? Box office whammo!
It’s late. I need some sleep.
October 2nd, 2005 at 11:20 pm
Way to release a spoiler, BT, you cunt.
October 3rd, 2005 at 12:55 am
“# BT Says:
October 2nd, 2005 at 8:07 pm
I am a firefly fan, but was totally unimpressed by the movie. Why the fuck did he kill Wash in such a lame way?”
You dick.
October 3rd, 2005 at 12:59 am
I had never seen Firefly, and I thought it was a great, fun movie… just my two cents.
October 3rd, 2005 at 1:59 am
Tonight was my second time seeing the film. Sure, it had its flaws (bad editting), but I thought it was a very good film that brough the sci-fi movie genre up out of the garbage that it’s been recently.
I find it interesting that you talk about Farscape as show that had a great sense of chemistry and good actors, but claim that Firefly didn’t. Except for the first few episodes of Firefly, all the actors worked very well together and had quite a lot of screen chemistry. Farscape, on the other hand, had two puppets as main characters, and puppets are not know for their on-screen chemistry. Besides from being a lot more realistic than Farscape (translator microbes, give me a break), Firefly had the good sense not to have the main characters escape every situation perfectly unscathed.
This isn’t to say that I didn’t like Farscape; on the contrary, I enjoyed it a lot. But I could never do the whole “suspension of disbelief” thing that I could do with Firefly. There was just too much to believe.
October 3rd, 2005 at 2:17 am
HaHa PAWNED!!
October 3rd, 2005 at 4:25 am
It’s PWNED, numbnuts.
Pawned= you’d take it to the little store next to the bodega and get $6 for it.
October 3rd, 2005 at 8:39 am
The puppets in Farscape ruled. I don’t care if puppets don’t have ‘chemistry’ - those puppets had tons of personality and that little royal slug is my favourite character in the whole cast. But I did get tired of seeing Crichton & Co repeat the same plot but with different main villains, so I was quite happy to see Farscape end where it ended. It would really have sucked to see it continue, considering what they would’ve had to do at the start of the next season.
As for Firefly I haven’t seen anything yet, but I plan to check out the TV series before the movie. The best thing about “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” was the humour - the drama and the action just never did it for me. I suppose it has something to do with the characters being virtually immortal and that goodness is guaranteed to eventually triumph over badness. It’s really hard for me to care about what happens to characters like that, which is why “Oz” was so great. Well, Oz was also great because there were more than 2-3 perspectives shown. Lots of vulnerable characters and each with their own plots. Hard to settle for less now.
October 3rd, 2005 at 8:57 am
Rincewind, it sounds like you were’nt a fan of Farscape at all! Especially if you think the two main characters were puppets. The two puppet characters were secondary characters on the ship…
Unscathed? Ha! I once again, I guess you never watched the show. They got SO jacked up, and weren’t afraid to kill off lead characters from their crew.
October 3rd, 2005 at 9:40 am
The box office numbers are a little disappointing, but, as has been said above, the marketing of this movie hasn’t been incredibly good, and it’s been a hard sell outside the core audience of the TV show, so perhaps it’s not that surprising.
However, to say that the movie stinks without actually watching it is a little out of line. Since when did opening weekend box office numbers have anything to do with how good a movie is? Opening weekend numbers are proportional only to the strength of the PR machine, which is often completely independent of the movie. I think that, over time, they’ll definitely make several times over what they spent on it, but it isn’t going to happen over night.
As for critical reviews giving it a low score (which isn’t universally true, btw), when was the last time a Sci-Fi movie got a good critical review? Did you enjoy any of those?
I’ve seen Serenity now myself. It doesn’t have exactly the same feel as the TV show, but that’s kind of expected since they have to shove a story about an eight-member ensemble cast into a two hour movie. It is, however, an absolute blast. Especially if you haven’t seen the TV show, go into it looking for an action-packed Sci-Fi shooter and you won’t be disappointed. It isn’t the greatest movie of our time or anything, but anyone expecting it to be was, at best, naively optimistic.
October 3rd, 2005 at 11:25 am
Well, no, I’ve seen Firefly– and I think that kinda stinks. Unless I’m seriously missing something– in my opinion, it’s pretty bland acting and concept.
October 3rd, 2005 at 11:43 am
I’m not a JW fanboy or anything: hated Buffy, never saw Angel, and I only liked about half the Firefly eps. I’ll be the first to tell you a lot of them are pure drek (I want a Firefly fan to try to defend “Heart of Gold” to me with a straight face). That said…
$10 million is decent money for a late September start. Late September is where studios generally put their losers. The record domestic take for a September start is $141 mil: Rush Hour, which is the 151st highest grossing movie ever. The record opening weekend ever for a September start is $35 mil. That should tell you how successful (not!) a September start movie can be. Had Universal not pushed Serenity back from May so that they could more heavily market that dog The Interpreter (which ended up losing serious coin), Serenity would have made some money.
Whether this stuff will be taken into account by Universal remains to be seen.
All that said, DJ, you should give the movie a chance: it takes the normal Hollywood conventions for a sci-fi-action-comedy and stomps up and down on them. No Hollywood ending here, and the movie actually assumes intelligence on the part of the audience. I think you’d like it for those reasons alone.
October 3rd, 2005 at 12:26 pm
Couple of notes on Serenity.
The only movie ahead of it (Flightplan) only pulled in 15 mill.
Serenity wasn’t as widely released (which in the end is to the better.. no need for it to lose money).
It cost 39 million to make. Universal has said if it breaks 80 million they will make 2 more (from Adam Baldwin at Dragoncon in Atlanta)
Universal studio’s execs has said that Serenity is right on target. Word of Mouth will only make this spread quickly.
If 40 year old virgin can pull in 100mill.. I think Serenity can make it’s 80
–
For those of you who hate it when the good guy lets the bad guy shoot first (new Han Solo) go watch Serenity. It’s not perfect but it’s fun.
October 3rd, 2005 at 2:17 pm
Just an opinion:
I had never seen the Firefly series, just heard about a bit of it as hype started over the Serenity movie. I went to see the movie Friday night. For someone coming into the characters and story cold, it does all right. It’s not the blockbuster of the year, but it’s got a decent story, the humor is quirky and off-center (which I particularly enjoy), and the characters are all pretty good. The one most off-putting thing about the whole movie is the strange mash of old west and old sailing jargon used throughout. Get’s a bit old after a bit. All in all, not a bad movie.
Oh and Drew, as a first time poster…love the comic, you and Bob produce greatness.
October 3rd, 2005 at 9:06 pm
Aye! Saddle the Ponies and Mark Twain!
Like that?
October 3rd, 2005 at 11:15 pm
Couple of more pennies to toss in here:
1. Only watch Firefly in DVD form. Surely some nerdly friend has it. I know mine did. In the initial run on Fox, the shows were completely frelled (to borrow from Farscape) by being shown out of sequence (like showing the friggin’ premiere at the end).
2. I did not care for the show when I saw it orginally (catching 3 episodes). Boy does watching the DVDs cure that. Things make more sense, pacing is better, cast chemistry is worked out and makes sense
3. Farscape sucked Peacekeeper ASS the first half of season one. Crappy sets, mediocre acting, cheapest costuming this side of MutantX. By season two it was *brilliant*. Firefly far outpaced FS in quality given it was only half a season. Things could’ve been great with a little more time. It was never afraid to take chances (much like FS) and had a great since of timing.
4. “Serenity” rescued my space opera loving soul (since it’s not really SciFi IMO, more fantasy) from the deep, dark, puss-filled pit left by one George Lucas’ sorry excuses for the last 3 SWs films. It was *fun* and the leads had a smidgen of acting ability.
$1.50 later…and there you go.
October 4th, 2005 at 1:16 am
Ehn, I dunno what to say about Firefly. It wasn’t bad, but it was too much a “Western in Space” for me to take too seriously. I think I’ll spend my money on “Curse of the Wererabbit” instead. What? Shut the f**k up, it’s my $8 and I’ll spend it however I want to!
As for Superman, isn’t Bryan Singer doing that and Whedon doing Wonder Woman?
October 4th, 2005 at 4:44 am
I was also freshly wounded from the Farscape cancellation and didn’t watch Firefly during the original airing. However, when the DVDs came out my roomate at the time (a huge Whedonophile) bought them and I was hooked on the character-driven plot.
That’s the glory and the problem in it. It is character driven. This makes for great storytelling but it also requires a much higher investment of attention and emotion from the audience. Not everyone gets that at first glance and even if they do, not everyone wants to participate.
There is also the fact that Joss Whedon writes plots where he’ll hold a gun up to a kitten’s head for an hour and then suddenly shoot a puppy instead. Ohhhhh… clever Joss, clever!
As for the whining spoiler leakage above. Well… sometimes puppies just gotta die, man. You have to admit, that worked for the scene. It elicited a sudden and visceral emotional response while making the threat of the villian VERY real.
Besides… you’re not going to miss ‘the puppy’ any more or any less than you did between the DVDs and the movie. If no more movies or TV seasons are made then there will be no more ‘puppy’ to miss. If another movie or TV season is made then there are an upteen-million different ways to involve more ‘puppy’ without losing the integrity of the scene in the movie.
Think about it.
Just please don’t whine.
October 5th, 2005 at 9:55 am
Orson Scott Card likes it - that has to mean something.
http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/2005-09-30-extra.shtml
October 5th, 2005 at 9:57 am
I’d just like to point you all to a review by Orsen Scott Card. http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/2005-09-30-extra.shtml
Now if any of you are a best selling Sci-Fi writter, then you can despute his review. If not, shut your pie hole and watch the movie.
October 5th, 2005 at 9:58 am
Damnit beaten by 2 minutes!!
October 8th, 2005 at 11:35 am
I never saw Firefly and knew nothing about it … but I liked Serenity quite a lot, as a standalone. I didn’t like it as much as Orson Scott Card did — his review said he hopes that “Ender’s Game” as a movie can be as good as Serenity, which is quite an endorsement, to me — but I enjoyed Serenity enough to think about seeing it twice. And I haven’t done that since LOTR. Oh, and “Garden State.”
I even forgive the lame special effects and mushy editing in the fight sequences. $40M doesn’t buy a lot of CGI these days. (But that really was one lame lookin’ spaceship.)