Looking for information by Elena

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Looking for information

POSTED BY: ELENA
UPDATED: Thursday, June 23, 2005 11:48
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Tuesday, June 21, 2005 7:05 AM

Hi

I'm working on a story about Serenity the movie for a Russian Film magazine. Maybe you could clarify some points for me?

1. When did Joss start working on the project& 2002? 2001?

2. There are rumors that FireFly was the "baby" of an ousted executive and that Fox suits planned to destroy it because if FireFly did well then there would be all sorts of questions along the lines of "Why are were firing guys who are making hit shows?" Any details?

3. The number of sold DVD copies - is there any possibility to find more or less exact information?

Thanks in advance

Elena

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Tuesday, June 21, 2005 7:24 AM

RKLENSETH

1. It was made and aired in 2002 but when Whedon came up with the idea...well...you'll have to ask him.

2. That story is new to me and I've been around since 2003. I'm going to say that is untrue. I think what happened is that they saw the 2 hour pilot episode and thought that it was too slow and wouldn't hook an audience. They then ordered a new 1 hour pilot episode and aired that instead which didn't do the job that the 2 hour pilot episode did thus it lost much of the audience. They then aired it out of order which further confused people and then cancelled it when the ratings didn't justify the costs.

3. That is the golden question that no one seems to know the answer to. Reason being that these numbers are kept secret because if the cast and crew and such find out how much money 20th Century Fox was making they might demand royalties. Other articles put it around 200,000 to 250,000 but that I think that is an old number and it is a lot higher now. I speculate somewhere around 500,000 if not more.

I have a question myself; Is there high interest for Firefly/Serenity and are there Browncoats in Russia?

Good luck with your article.

Oh, and play Cantr II at www.cantr.net.

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Tuesday, June 21, 2005 7:42 AM

ELENA

There is a small group of dedicated fans in Russia. Firefly had never been aired in my country so the only people who got interested and ordered DVDs are fans of BtVS (AtS had never been aired in Russia too). I'm a BtVS fan and Joss fan (although I don't dare to mention it to my arty-farty collegues)

When the opportunity arose I proposed to my editor to make Serenity a film of the month for the September issue. He was *very* sceptical but I promised him a compelling story so right now I need spicy details. With exact numbers.

I read about the "baby of an ousted executive" on Slashdot forums

http://slashdot.org/articles/05/05/12/2245252.shtml?tid=214&tid=97 post my monkelectric

and I don't know if it's just rumors or the poster has some inside knowledge. Because it's definitely a weird case - the network puts its most ambitious show in a bad time slot then shows episodes out of order then pre-empts it then cancels in mid-season.

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Tuesday, June 21, 2005 7:42 AM

OXYOPIA

I had been wondering about DVD sales in the past and I agree that the 200,000 quoted is an outdated figure. Near as I could tell, 200k is the number of sets sold between December 2003 and May 2004.

The number of DVD's sold since then is just about anyone's guess...especially with the recent upswing in Firefly's popularity on Amazon in the past couple months. 500,000 sounds like a reasonable estimation, but it is really hard to claim any truly accurate figure without some extra information.

In either case, it has been said that the original surge of 200,000 units helped to convince Universal to make a full length movie from the 'failed' TV show.

-Oxy

------------------------------------------------
'What people call impossible is just stuff they
haven't seen yet...'

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Tuesday, June 21, 2005 7:51 AM

ELENA

Thanks for information!
I wonder why the numbers of sold DVDs are kept secret? As opposed to boxoffice charts which are published everywhere.

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Tuesday, June 21, 2005 9:04 AM

RKLENSETH

You might get some more info if you post this over at www.serenitymovie.com . It is the official site and forum for the movie.

Oh, and play Cantr II at www.cantr.net.

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Tuesday, June 21, 2005 9:44 AM

KNIBBLET

Very few actors get a cut of the movie revenue. The original Star Wars main cast would never have had to work another day in their life because George Lucas made that movie on a shoestring. They got paid just a bit above scale - but 2% of the net and 2% of marketing their image was thrown in. Hence .... big damn rich folk.

I might be wrong, but I believe that DVD sales are figured the same way as televised residuals. Ergo, the studios would want to keep that quiet as it's money out of their pockets.

I might be all wrong. Hell, I probably am all wrong. But, that's my best guess.

"I'm gonna rip you a new puppet hole, bitch!"

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Tuesday, June 21, 2005 9:57 AM

NWUKSTEVE

Quote:
Originally posted by Oxyopia:
In either case, it has been said that the original surge of 200,000 units helped to convince Universal to make a full length movie from the 'failed' TV show.

Yes, this has been said many times. However, it's also been said that Universal execs loved the show, were keen to make a film with Joss and didn't need to be swayed by DVD sales. Sorry to add to the confusion.

---
"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." - Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

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Tuesday, June 21, 2005 10:17 AM

SOUPCATCHER

Hi Elena and good luck on your article!

This is a kind of kludged together thing that probably has many errors (hint: someone who was around back then please jump in).

Quote:
Originally posted by Elena:
1. When did Joss start working on the project& 2002? 2001?

The first mentions of the TV series are from December 2001 (those are the earliest I could find).
http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,9272,00.html
http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=7&t=189

Timeline kinda goes something like this (although, it's probably a good idea to scroll down to the bottom of this page and look at the old News Headlines http://www.fireflyfans.net/threadlist.asp?b=7&a=1 ):
March 2002 - Last cast member signed
April 2002 - Pilot filmed at a cost of 10 million
May - June
- Friday at 8pm announced as air time
- Disagreement over pilot, Train Job new pilot
- September 22 announced for first air date
Summer 2002 - Filming of many episodes
September 2002 - First episode airs
November 2002 - Firefly announced on hiatus in 2003 (cancelled)
December 2002 - Last episode airs

Rumors of DVD for all the filmed episodes started sometime around March 2003:
http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=7&t=1738

The earliest mentions of the movie that I could find (very short search, however) are from around April 2003 with more stuff coming out throughout the rest of the year:
http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=7&t=1862
http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=7&t=1895
http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=2283
http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=7&t=2474
http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=7&t=2490

DVD set was released December 2003 and the sales were part of the reason Universal greenlit the movie.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=7&t=3938

A really good timeline of events from January 2004 to the present can be found over on Jeremy's site:
http://www.fireflymovie.com/news_old.html

Hope that helps

---------------------
Dogs think that everything you do is their business. Cats think that everything they do is your business.

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Tuesday, June 21, 2005 11:03 AM

ELENA

Guys, thank you very much for the information!

Soupcatcher, I am very grateful for posting the links for the first Firefly mentions. I got hooked on Jossverse in 2002 and followed all Jossverse news and spoilers since BtVS season 7 but I didn't know how and when Firefly started.

I hope Serenity will be successful in Russia. The movie has a powerful distributor here, UIP, who usually works with big blockbusters.

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Tuesday, June 21, 2005 5:05 PM

ZOID

Elena:

Привет, из Соединенных Штатов Америки!

I have to believe some version of your query #2 must be true. Even the idiots at F*x must realize they have to grow an audience. They are a distant 4th in overall ratings, behind our 'Big 3' (CBS, ABC, NBC) and very few things come down the pipe at F*X that are instant successes. Secondly, they had to know that a Joss Whedon television series was the next best thing to striking gold. Even if it took a while to grow the ratings for the show, it would eventually catch on with his multitude of die-hard fans and be a strong producer for them.

So why didn't they show more patience? Why did they mercilessly move it around in its time slot? Why didn't they at least wait until baseball and football playoffs ended to look critically at its ratings? Some have said it was a purely business decision; but I for one am not buying that argument, for the reasons listed above.

I will only say that if it was a 'strictly business decision', then who ever was responsible for taking that decision has no business being in business. If you make an investment in a proven performer, you stick with 'em 'til they hit their stride. I personally suspect Gail Berman (F*X TV Prexy) was trying to show her old colleague (Whedon) up. I don't think she liked him getting all the credit for BtVS and AtS being successful (she Exec Produced those shows before taking the job at F*x). So she 'proved' that Joss couldn't be successful without her by scuttling Firefly.

She sure as hell didn't stand up for him...

С уважением,

zoid
_________________________________________________

"Sure as I know anything, I know this: I aim to misbehave." -Capt. Mal Reynolds, Serenity, a.k.a. 'the BDM'

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Wednesday, June 22, 2005 5:32 AM

ELENA

Thank you, Zoid!

I wonder if some day somebody writes a book about Firefly/Serenity and so that we could learn about the real motives and undercurrents at F*x. The more I delve into the Firefly story the more I am fascinated.

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Wednesday, June 22, 2005 6:37 AM

GUIDEWRITER

Jane Espensen tells about the first time Joss told her about Firefly in the book Finding Serenity.

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Thursday, June 23, 2005 11:48 AM

ELENA

Thanks for information.

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