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66 Comments
- sambearpoet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4You know, there's no reason to harsh on Serenity/Firefly or people who like the series. It's kind of a silly argument to call them "just fanboys."
The truth is that the movie was hamstrung from the beginning due to the fact that Universal didn't want to promote it very much, and didn't keep it in the theaters long enough to do the kind of boomerang numbers that it could have done. Now they're further hamstringing it by going direct-to-DVD in many countries. Some folks won't even get to see a theatrical release.
And Joss did his best to make Serenity on the cheap. Why couldn't Universal have done such a good job in the US as they did in the UK, promoting it? That would have solved a lot of its problems right there.
Oh well. I think we'll get our Serenity Trilogy, we just might have to wait a bit on it. I'm patient. - generalleoff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Serenity strayed to far from the shows formula in an attempt to make it more appealing to the masses but the masses don't give a damn. I personally liked the movie but I would rather pretend it did not happen in the cannon Firefly universe. I don't think they did enough of the western formula and they broke a lot of the mood laid down by the TV series. It also seems to have turned it into a boring "lets take out the evil empire war story".
Another flaw with the film is it strayed to far away from what finally made the TV show a hit. The Internet viewer and the DVD sales. We seem to prefer to watch things in the comfort of our homes with the benefit of doing what we want and watching when we want with our PC. In my opinion the theater is an obsolete concept for most movies these days and I would rather not sit in a smelly ass popcorn grease stained uncomfortable chair in a theater run by zit faced morons half as old as I am.
Serenity will make up it's money and then some on DVD for sure but they were fools to think it would make any money with a theatrical run.
If they want to make some real money off the series they should do a 6 episode per year straight to DVD mini series. All 6 episodes are 2 hours long and in some way relate to each other in plot. The series should be subscription based at say $10 - $12 per episode with them coming straight to you in the mail with the 1st episode of the series shipping with a free box to compile the set in, so in the end you have a box set. You can of course still buy the DVDs at normal retail as well.
I personally would like to see that done in animated form. Cell not lame CGI. - mburns, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I still think Serenity was the best Sci-Fi I have seen in a couple years. It didn't meld as well as I would have expected with the shows after going back to watch them (I had never seen them before going reluctantly to the movie). Both the movie and the TV series are extremely underrated, and it is a shame more people don't know about them. Here is hoping for a sequel, at the least!
- spider-man, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Actually, if the gross box office receipts are correct, then Serenity is still a long way from break-even. First of all, the theater chains take anywhere from 20 to 50 per cent of the gross"
Why is it then the claim is that the theatres make no money on the film itself and only on the concessions?
"Plus no one has counted the marketing spend for the movie..."
From what I could tell was virtually nonexistant. A few commercials on the Sci-Fi channel is all I ever saw. - _HAM_, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I got torrent of this last week.
I had never seen the T.V. show and the trailers didn't look very good, so this movie wasn't even on my radar. But I Download it becuase I was bored.
It is actually a really good movie, and I've watched it a few times now. I'll probably try to buy it when it comes to DVD. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1So why make a movie that's going to flop in the theaters and then release it to DVD. No, if they ever do make another, it's going to be a lower budget direct to DVD.
- chemnerd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I assume a fair amount of people who saw it will buy it on DVD. Heck Amazon isn't even asking $17.
I think as long as it ends up making money in the end we'll see a sequel - even if it's a "made for sci-fi movie". - Danleykubrick, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I am a big fan of Serenity and Firefly. It thought the shows were excellent and I was really hoping that the movie would do phenomenally so that Hollywood would head in the direction of good, but not ridiculously expensive.
Unfortunately, making the production budget back, won't begin to pay for the other major costs of making and especially, distributing a film.
I'm not on the production side of things, and every movies budget is different, especially in this day of outlandish back-end points, but the rule of thumb was 2.5 times production budget in old Hollywood to break even, paying for both production budget, marketing, and the surprisingly expensive prints (look up how expensive it is to print 35mm film, then calculate it for two hours, at the highest quality, for 2500 screens).
Serenity's not done yet and on a relatively low-budget film like this, breaking even may come closer to 2.5 times production budget than the huge blockbusters we usually see. If this does well on DVD (and I suspect it will) this film still could break even.
At a minimum, WB isn't going bankrupt over it, and maybe we could even see some direct-to-DVD sequels. But this is not by any stretch a runaway financial success. And the next time we question why Hollywood isn't making less crap and more serenity, remember that the audience just isn't going to serenity. Film is a business, and those who decide what gets made and what doesn't, while certainly not fail-proof, are at-least somewhat in touch with their audience. - simpleid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I might actually agree that this show was actually was too good for mainstream... after seeing the entire series it's incomprehensible how it failed. The writting was far more creative than almost any other t.v. show I've heard of to this day.
I would have seen it on t.v. had I known it was going to air at all, am I the only one that never knew this was going to come back when it aired? - MicahC, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Exactly, Universal killed Serenity because of it's lack of advertising. What it did advertise was mediocre and failed to capture the concept of the show/movie. I also don't think I ever heard from an official source (advertisement, tv special, etc.) that it was a continuation of the Firefly series. Only from fans would someone without any knowledge of Firefly have known it was related. Universal had a "Star Trek" on their hands, hand full control to monopolize the license, and failed.
- Sturm55, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I heard that the sci-fi channel was thinking about sponsoring a made -for-tv firefly film.
- scarper86, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You can't simply look at the budget and gross of a movie to determine its profitability. The financing of movies is _much_ more complicated than that. Just one example: http://www.slate.com/id/2117309/
- muikano, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3You know, I feel stupid everytime I buy a DVD. I'm supporting the continuation of a show I love but I know that billions out there are just burning it down for free.
And the thing is: if the movie business would just digitize their business models, DVDs would be much much cheaper! Region specific DRMed rewritable DVDs with a online upgrade tool if you move to another region.
I've often thought about entering into the DVD black market scene but this inner morality thing always holds me back. I've really fed up with the movie industry. The key for antipiracy is frequent research on codecs. Constantly upgrading/improving codecs is what'll kill piracy. RANT! RANT! Goddammit. - khintzma, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4"The movie would have been better if they didn't go off on old west style tangents every 15 minutes. Keep with one style of writing though the whole freaking movie, please."
My God, you're an idiot. - adml_shake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Actually, if the gross box office receipts are correct, then Serenity is still a long way from break-even. First of all, the theater chains take anywhere from 20 to 50 per cent of the gross, depending on the movie (Star Wars 3 is probably 20 per cent, where Deuce Bigalow or some other crappy film is closer to 50). Plus no one has counted the marketing spend for the movie..."
Theaters are usually get 5-8% or the ticket sales, I have some friends that still work at movie theaters, one of them even runs one and i've asked her this many times. And a certain amount is put in the movie budget for advertising, the studio can spend more if they want later, if they think they have a blockbuster on their hands. But it seems like they only do that with the craptastic stuff they expect us to go see in masses. - Coltron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I find that kind of a shame. THe movie was great. When I saw it, 4 weeks after release the theatre was still pretty full. Too bad it didn't make Black on debut. Atleast DVD will give it life.
But then, it was DVD release that gave firefly life :)
http://www.thebrig.org/ - 42kami, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0good comments, but the original post is not news in any sense. no digg.
- Herolint, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Prior to seeing this movie, I had never seen or heard anything about Firefly. I thought this movie was one of the best Sci-Fi movies I have seen in a long time, so I bought the TV series on DVD and thought it was great too. I've also pre-ordered the movie DVD from Amazon, which is something I NEVER do. Very few other movies (if any) have had that effect on me.
It's sad that it wasn't promoted better. I would not have seen it were it not for a guy at work talking about it. I'd like to see more, but I'll be surprised if that happens. - CaptainMal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"I know I could steam it and burn it" - Archer
I did not know that Valve was involved in the distribution of this film. No offense, but how did your brain even learn human speech? I'm just so curious.
Anyway, it certainly seems that Serenity needed to do much better to secure a sequel (the cast signed for up to three films), but perhaps excellent DVD sales will help propel the movement to create more. Certainly the best film I have seen in ages. If more movies were like this, I'd start going to the theatre again.
If DVD sales perform the way they have for Firefly the Complete Series over the last couple years, we'll probably get our sequel. I believe as of yesterday and today Serenity pre-orders have taken it to #4 on Amazon's DVD Top Seller's list. Either way it will be a at least a year before we know for sure, I think.
I still have lots of friends to show the Firefly series to, but there hasn't been one yet who hasn't immediately fallen in love with it. - WalkerBurgin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It's a shame this movie didn't do well, it was an incredible movie... definately plan on buying the DVD when it comes out.
- redmage, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Actually, if the gross box office receipts are correct, then Serenity is still a long way from break-even. First of all, the theater chains take anywhere from 20 to 50 per cent of the gross, depending on the movie (Star Wars 3 is probably 20 per cent, where Deuce Bigalow or some other crappy film is closer to 50). Plus no one has counted the marketing spend for the movie...
- LycoLoco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@geneHACKman
I don't know what series you're thinking about, buty Firefly never ended up on Sci-Fi, or at least not in its actual run of airings. It was originally on Fox, but Fox decided to put it in the slot of death on Friday Night and then proceeded to air the show out of order, never even showing the original pilot until LAST, after the show had been cancelled. The only time it ended up on Sci-Fi was when it was promotional for Serenity.
Seriously, give the series a chance. I don't care if you pay for it or not. The torrents are out there, so give it a try. I promise you that you'll wanna buy the series after just a few episodes, given that you watch it in the actual order you were supposed to. - shiftless, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0That's pretty good if the numbers are accurate. I thought most movies didn't even start making a profit until they went out on DVD anyway?
- Trjn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1"I assume a fair amount of people who saw it will buy it on DVD. Heck Amazon isn't even asking $17."
Thats because a fair amount of people, nay the vast majority who saw it were Firefly fanboys. - km8210, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Although ancillaries (DVDs, TV sales etc.) will probably make Serenity profitable, the title's suggestion that "breaking even" is some kind of success is not true in the movie business. Just breaking even on any $40 million investment is a failure. Success is getting a big return on the risk the investors made, not getting just a dollar back for each dollar they put into it. But as scarper says the movie business is way more complicated than you guys think and you can't just look at budgets and gross numbers.
- scarper86, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Theaters are usually get 5-8% or the ticket sales"
It depends on the movie. They make different deals for each film. The theater's take is usually on a sliding scale starting off as a low percentage on opening weekend and increasing as the movie becomes less popular. For a major blockbuster on opening weekend the theater's take can be as low as 5%.
Also don't forget that for big stars their salaries can be a huge percentage of the box office gross. Although that doesn't apply to Serenity it's something to consider when you look at the grosses and think you know whether a movie is making money. For example, Mike Meyers alone made about $40 million the opening weekend of the last Austin Powers movie. All of the front end and back end deals make it pretty difficult to figure out a movie's financial health just by looking at the Box Office Mojo numbers. - Chuckster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I downloaded the torrent, AND I have the DVD on pre-order form Amazon.
- jinexile, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0To the people that think theatres make money off of ticket sales, you're kidding yourself. Another source of revenue for the studios is licensing fees they charge to the theatres to play the movie. The theatres usually only make enough to PAY BACK the licensing fee the to the studios, if that. All their profits comes from Concessions, that's why the markup is 65%-80%.
I imagine the studio's have made back their Budget on the film quite easily already, marketing may be another thing but shouldn't be hard they didn't really put a whole lot into that. I think DVD sales will definitely push them over. - vigil, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I think I personally stand somewhere in the middle. Saw the movie because I enjoy Sci-Fi movies; had never before seen the show. Enjoyed both the movie, and the show ex post facto.
When Hollywood makes sequels to movies like Duece Bigalo and other equally moronic titles I think there's a..."slight"...hope that we'll see something else out of the Firefly/Serenity storyline. Problem is Sci-Fi movies just aren't that popular anymore outside of the "Geek" culture. They thrilled when people's imaginations were running wild and they had never before seen anything of that magnitude (read Star Wars, Star Trek, Alien(s), etc) but now, twenty years later (at least in terms of Star Wars and the like) special effects and grand screen filling panoramic shots aren't entirely uncommon (and can just as easily be viewed at home on some "made for TV" movie).
Moral of the story, the age of Sci-Fi is dead...at least for the short while. Let's just be happy Serenity was made, and enjoy each of these as they come out. Might be a few years again until something decent stumbles along. - ateoto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yeah the commercial for the movie pretty much ruined it. The movie was awesome as is the series. But even big Sci-Fi fans I know were completely turned off by the commericial.
I'll definitely be picking up the DVD. - Valence, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0For a typical big studio movie, the worldwide marketing is equal, roughly, to the production budget, maybe a bit less, sometimes not. The studio cut down on that figure for Serenity by showing advance viewings of the film to audiences they felt would be likely to spread the word, relying on word-of-mouth instead of some of the traditional channels for marketing, but still, about $20M estimated went into it.
Figuring out cuts for theaters and distributors and you're looking at about $80M needed to push Serenity into the black, so it's nowhere near that, not yet. It will take the DVD sales to do it. Fanboys, get your checkbooks out if you want to support the Whedon Train. Either that, or don't bitch in the future when studios balk at making science fiction that doesn't star Charlize Theron or involve a warp drive somehow. - headzoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It's all good since theater ticket sales only account for something stupid, like 15% of total sales made on a movie. So once it's released on DVD, and then 6 other "special edition" DVDs, and then TV, the producers will have made a lot of money.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0i watched this movie and i hope they don't break even... that has to be one of the worst movies of all time... at least the acting...
- Robinh66, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Joss is my master now.
- ThePharaoh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I loved Serenity. Great SciFi flick...I'll buy it on DVD just to support the cause.
thepharaoh
http://www.freneticnetwork.com
http://www.frenetictech.com - renfield33, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0i watched the entire series (only 14 episodes i think) and the movie all in one weekend.
it was awesome. - MindTrigger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I saw Serenity because the movie preview looked cool, and I love sci-fi. I really enjoyed it a lot, so I went back and watched the Firefly series on DVD and fell in love with it. I never did watch it when it was on TV, I'm sorry to say.
I'm not going to go into detail about all the things I liked about it, but if I had to pick one main item, it would be the characters. They were awesome characters with a good human touch. The western flavor with a dash of asian influence was just weird enough to be perfect. I was pretty blown away by a couple of the episodes, and I think they blew it on a couple of them as well (like the last one which was basically all western). The other episodes were as good as any TV Sci-Fi I have seen, except for the new Battlestar Galactica series which is simply incredible.
Anyway, in support of the whole franchise I will be buying the series and Serenity on DVD. Many hope it will be resurrected, but I think that's a huge long shot. I've checked out the main "fan site" and it seems there may be some sci-fi books being written, which I will pick up.
I know some of you don't get the "big deal", but all I can say is it clicked with some people, and with others, it just didn't. For me it was amazing and I really got into it. It was a real bummer when I watch the last episode of the series and I realized that was the end. - rspeed, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0That $38,000,000 doesn't include advertising costs, which you can imagine were fairly substantial.
The DVDs should sell fairly well, so it may end up a few million dollars in the black. - samwyse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"If they want to make some real money off the series they should do a 6 episode per year straight to DVD mini series. All 6 episodes are 2 hours long and in some way relate to each other in plot."
Excellent idea, but how about direct to iPod video? - dsxmakina, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Yet another show that was way too good for mainstream.
I'll pick up the DVD. - MindTrigger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0JChung,
No one was comparing Serenity to friggin Potter or Narnia, genius. Not only are they in completely different genres, but the budget difference is gigantic. A movie doesn't have to be a world wide blockbuster like Potter to be successful. Movies with much larger budgets have certainly bombed harder than Serenity did, and I bet it sells a crapload of DVDs.
I found myself strangely attracted to the whole Firefly/Serenity thing AFTER seeing the movie. I think Battlestar Galactica is a much higher quality TV show than Firefly, but then I considered Firefly special for other reasons. Firefly was certainly far better (IMO) than any Star Trek garbage to come out during the past several years. Enterprise? Please.
(O.T. Damn I hope them make a BSG Movie)
Firefly was treated like a red headed step child by fox, and put in a ***** timeslot until it died. Fox loves to do this. Over the years I have watched them move many good shows to Friday until they die, just to make room for some mindless show made for stupid cows. Crap TV like Desperate Housewives become incredible hits while anything that requires a little thought and imagination quickly tanks in this country.
I think Joss is partly to blame here as well. He deviated in to the Western aspect of Firefly a little too far a lot of the time. There are times you could have flipped channels to Firefly, and swore to god you were watching a western show... and I'm not talking about a few seconds worth. Some of the episodes are 50%+ wild west setting with horses and all, and not a single sci-fi element to be seen. That had to turn away some of the hardcore sci-fi watchers out there, as well as confuse any potential casual watchers. I think once you are a couple seasons in and have a big, loyal following you can do episodes like that, but when you are trying to grab that first season audience (and keep your show on the air), you have to be a little more careful. For me, and obviously many others, the western twist was one of the reasons the show was special. I liked, generally speaking, that it had that weirdness to it. - Braddeharder, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Why do people cream in their pants for firefly? It was done by the guy who did "Buffy: the vampire slayer", and it shows.
- pfizzle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Redmage is right and Serenity is about half its budget away from that record this digg describes. Not to mention the marketing budget, despite people thinking there was none, is probably another 1/5th of the production budget at the lest.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0To whom do I write the check? :P
- franksands, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0It will go directly to video here in Brazil, since the series wasn't very known around here. If it comes :-(
- johnxstone, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1The movie would have been better if they didn't go off on old west style tangents every 15 minutes. Keep with one style of writing though the whole freaking movie, please.
"It'd be a damn sight worse if we hadn’t done right by him..." and a second later they're talking like perfectly normal human beings about hyper drives and plasma shields... So stupid. - ksgant, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2The next movie will kill off even more people to where it's just the captain and the ship. Then in the 3rd movie he finally dies.
Then Buffy will take over the ship. - chuckfoo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0ONLY 1 MILLION
- yellekc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0does the total lifetime gross = ticket price * viewers, or is it the amount the studio collects?
if its the former then the movie is still far from breaking even as the theater and distribution networks will get a large chunk of that money - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I swear, when I hear people talk about the Firefly series, I swear they must be talking about some other series, 'cuz I don't get it.
Are you really talking about that horrible Sci Fi series that ended up on the Sci Fi Network? That show is one of the cheesiest things I have ever seen since Farscape...
Oops, now the Farscape fanboys will chime in... -
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