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I am a hardcore browncoat, and loved the movie, but being realistic:Lots of comments I could make, but one that stands out, as someone who works in the TV/film industry, There are a few things that Hollywood Marketing people look at.1) WHO is in it, they can calculate how many dollars each big name in the film cast/crew will generate on opening weekend. It's a nifty binder just full of names matched with dollars, Serenity had no big names however, that hurts opening gross.2) The marketing budget is directly related to the opening weekend gross, this is because the opening weekend ticket sales are directly related to marketing, not word of mouth/media reviews. Reviews/Buzz dictate the rest of the gross *following* the opening weekend. Opening weekend, (aside from some exceptions the slow build movies, [Napoleon Dynamite, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, etc]), are what the studio looks at for potential sequels/spinoffs.DVD sales are changing this tho, so lets hope we get more Firefly/Serenity! Joss has said, there's nothing stopping Fox from starting it up again, or someone else from buying the TV rights. Universal only has the Film rights.

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Personally, the bottom line is I loved the movie and will get the DVD asap.The budget and box-office don't worry me(as I used to but it doesn't matter anymore). Note that there are very good movies that may not come under the hollywood's definition of a "HIT" movie.One of my favourite science related movies in the recent past is Pi <a class="user" href="http://www.pithemovie.com/gifpage.html&quot;&gt;http://www.pithemovie.com/gifpage.html&lt;/a&gt; amongst live action movies and of course I can't rule out Ghost in the shell.I understand the creators/crew of the film need to get back something from all their efforts.....But after many years pondering on such thing, I realise i can't change how people choose (taste of films/music etc....) and money seems to reflect these.But strictly personal from my perpective for myself I don't need some critic or a box office countdown to tell which movie I need to watch.

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I find it interesting that we're comparing a movie which everyone admits only had a smattering of followers with movies that have hundreds of thousands if not millions of people who are fluent with the story. The only exception would be Star Wars Part 4, which to be honest at the time of its release was not really up against a vast number of movies similar in its genre. Star Wars was and always has been an excpetion to the rule.Going through the list of Harry Potter, Narnia, War of the Worlds, Lord of the Rings .. all these were hugely popular novels before they were ever made into movies. And lets see if anyone on the entire movie going planet DOESN'T know what happens in King Kong before they go and see it. Comparing Serenity to those is not really a valid argument, all those stoies had their fan base many many many years before the movies ever came out (and by came out I mean were produced and released in their newly found CGI glory).On the flip side of the coin the number of 'poor' movies that are released these days is horrendous, some of them you have to agree are given funding not through having a fan base, or plot, script, or anything else essentailly movie related at all .. but just through the producers having a good salesmen and being able to rope in a named actor (eg. What the hell is DeNiro doing in that awful not very scary horror movie ??).Now I wasn't part of the firefly fan base that waved flags and wore old cordenroy jackets to further Joss's cause. In fact I only just watched the series and the movie over the last day or two (I'm taking some time off work and thought I'd see whats out there), hence why I'm here because I wanted to find out if the show is (ever) going to continue.Yep I enjoyed it.It was an enthralling new angle on a now familiar theme, and I found it far more entertaining then this utter crap that goes as Sci-Fi these days. Pretty people in beautiful places, all filmed in front of blue screen and every actor easily replaceable with the cardboard cut out you can by of them from any store around 2 seconds after the film is released. I know I'm in the minority but thats not what I want to see.Will the movie make money in the box office ??I doubt it.In Australia it received a brief television advertising campaign, but the images flashed up so fast you had no idea who was who or what was going on. I didn't know the story since FireFly was never released on TV here and I don't have FoxTel/Cable/PayTV, so it simply LOOKED like another space show aimed at the typical sci-fi market. If they'd done some homework with the advertising they could have adopted a number of different angles which WOULD have dragged me by the ear to the cinema to see it, and thats saying something since I hate the cinema. I love good movies, but as someone else mentioned beforehand being in a room with a few hundred other people, most of whom want to talk on their phones or shout obscenities to their mates is not very appealing any more.I completely agree with a few post'ers who said this series/movie is a niche market. It sure as hell is, but these days it seems that ANY movie that has a refreshing storyline or characters is either a 'niche' market or is a ripped off version of a foreign film. If Holywood made movies like Serenity I would be going to the cinema a whole lot more and might even be happy with the thought of my hard earned dollars being used to buy a movie producers new ivory backscratcher. I sincerly hope the movie makes enough money to forward a sequal, as I'd very much enjoy watching their exploits in a new story. But instead I'm sure we're going to get more feel good movies of inner city women looking for Mr Right, more word-up homey flicks, and more cops and robbers episodes. Its easy money because people like a quick fix for 2 hours, but I guess thats where I'm different because I like a movie that creates a world, places genuine characters in that world, and then can actually spend time showing these people interacting in a believable and dare I say 'human' fashion. For me the sci-fi aspect was just a bonus.As for the brief commenst questioning why we would be using horses in the future, I fully agree with a return post which said that people on a frontier would not have access to vast technologies. Their mere location inhibits them from it, and unless they access to refineries, mechanics and metalurgists they wouldn't be able to repair these things either. Tonto would be a grease monkey if the lone ranger drove a car.If you need more proof of the vast technologies available to them, check out the episode 'Trash' where the bin seems to be running Windows (at least in the future some things are in their rightful place).Peace.

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I'll never really understand why people insist on arguing passionately over personal opinions. Some people didn't like the movie or the series, others loved it. What good does it do to post a message saying "the movie sucked - give it up!"? Are people that annoyed because fans want more of what they love? And I don't mean to pick on the non-fans exclusively - all flaming is pretty pointless to me - but it sure seems like, whenever fans are discussing a topic intelligently, someone inevitablely chimes in with a "movie was lame" comment, without any real argument, statement, or obvious motive other than to simply derail the thread. Wha?? Why?? Why humans so stupid?At any rate, although there is no question there are a lot of loyal fans of Firefly/Serenity, the stats seems to indicate that there simply aren't enough. This is a cult following. Joss himself says he makes his shows to be cult hits. That means the world's not gonna fall in love with it. A select group of people with similar minds and interests are going to love it, the rest of world is gonna shrug their shoulders and walk away.Firefly did some amazing things with its cult following. Not as amazing as Buffy or Angel did with thier cults, but not too bad either. When the show seemed dead, we got a movie. But in the end, I just don't think the fan base was big enough to support the franchise. I think we should be happy and grateful with what we've got. We put up a good fight, but after all the browncoats did lose the war. ;)

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Being an Aussie Like Sh0ckWave, I agree that preparation for the movie could have been handled better in Aus.As he pointed out, the series still has not had any air-time on the commercial stations. I'm not saying that it would have had a dramatic effect on the box office figures (considering the Australian market is minuscule in comparison to the US), but it certainly wouldn't have hurt to push the series onto one of the commercial stations BEFORE the movie was released. This would have provided an opportunity for a fan base to develop. I didn't see the movie simply because it didn't look like much on the surface.A friend just lent me his copy of the series which I've just finished watching, and I have to admit I was enthralled by it. Certainly s**ts on the majority of other crap they're running at the moment. I mean, how many flavors of CSI or Law & F-ing Order do you need?I'll definitely be buying my own copy of both the series and the movie, if I can find a place that still has them in stock. The link newbietheatre provided earlier in the thread are out of stock <a class="user" href="http://www.ezydvd.com.au/item.zml/783862&quot;&gt;http://www.ezydvd.com.au/item.zml/783862&lt;/a&gt;I&#039;m not surprised the DVD sales have eclipsed the box office figures in this country anyway. It was also a big disappointment to find out there won't be a further series.

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