What the Heck......no wonder things are going into the dump! by zzetta13

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

What the Heck......no wonder things are going into the dump!

POSTED BY: ZZETTA13
UPDATED: Friday, October 9, 2009 21:53
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VIEWED: 2097
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Thursday, October 8, 2009 4:06 AM

What the hell is wrong with the Sy/Fy channel? For months, no years, the browncoat fandom has been telling the folks in charge over there that if they would resurrect Firefly in some form or fashion we will come ( and bring all of our FF friends and buddies).

What have they done? Oh yeah they gave us some limp attempt at some low grade FF rip-off earlier this past summer. Nathan, Adam, Morena, Summer, and Alan Tudyk are all becoming major stars. Just look around. Adam is co-staring in his third season of CHUCK, Nathan is into his second popular season of CASTLE, Morena and Alan are about to start “V” on ABC ( which I am waiting for on pins and needles) and Summer and Ron Glass are doing movies. Gina is about to make guest appearances on FLASHFORWARD which I am watching and Simon and Jewel show up in things all the time.

These actors are right on the verge of being to be able to ask for higher pay-checks and with their stars starting to shine a whole lot brighter they will get it. You would think that entertainment companies that pride themselves on seeing what’s coming up in the future would get these guys under contract now some how for future film making.

And what can I say about Universal…… They had a shot at bringing all these folk in to do a sequel to Serenity and what did they do…..nothing. These actors are springing forth and making folks lots of money but the entertainment companies that think that they are so in tune with what’s going on can’t see the forest for the trees.

Sometime I wonder if there’s a bucket a brains between the whole lot of them.

Z, out

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Thursday, October 8, 2009 6:45 AM

STORYMARK

Looks like you partially answered your own question. The cast (which even 2 down is kinda large) are all rising in Hollywood - making them more expensive and in higher demand.

Many of them are working, which makes them unavailable for a new show.

Syfy would not own part of any new series, meaning they'd have to pony up for a fairly expensive show, which they would ONLY see a return for if the ratings are very high and let's face it - it got canceled in the first place for low ratings. They would not see anything from DVD sales, or iTunes etc.

And, since the sets are struck, even if they could reassemble the cast, it'd cost millions just getting things up and running again.

It'd be an expensive proposition for a channel with limited means - and it'd have to be a bigger hit than pretty much anything else they've done in order to turn a profit. And as loyal as we Browncoats are, we're still a limited audience that would not make it the hit they need.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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Thursday, October 8, 2009 7:57 AM

ZZETTA13

For the sake of argument here, what you’re tell me is Firefly got canceled because of rating ( which we know) and which is F*><‘s big excuse.

The rating wouldn’t have happened to be low because the network bounced the tv show around to different time slots and sometime just didn’t even air it at all. I didn’t even catch the show as it aired in 2002 but that alone would have irritated the heck out of me. Still I’ll give it to the network that they thought they were doing the right thing.

That’s all in the past now and just one click on the internet would let anyone know this show has gone global. It‘s all about corporate politics I believe. No matter imo the sooner all the cast and crew walk away from that network the better, which many of them have already done.

Firefly might have cost a bit of money to produce but I’ll bet I could come up with 10 original Sy/Fy tv programs that have been throwaways right now. Who’s flushing cashy-money down the toilet? Part of the reason Joss may have thinned out the herd in the BDM was to make it more appealing for some network to pick up.

I donno. Part of this is just a rant.

I caught SG-U last Friday night and thought that it was Ok….I may even try to watch more. I do know one particular show that I would tune in for every time. I’m still with Joss and holdin and I’m not sure if every browncoat here knows that there will be an “Easter Egg” on CASTLE that Nathan has mentioned. A little tribute to Firefly on one of the episodes…..but it won’t be until after Halloween.

Z

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Thursday, October 8, 2009 8:34 AM

STORYMARK

Why the ratings were low only matters to us. To a network, all that matters is that they were low. And it didn't bounce around timeslots - it was on Friday nights the whole time. It was pre-empted, but that was for the World Series, which is going to draw higher ratings than any scifi show ever could.

And sure, SyFy has had a lot of throw-away shows. And, in most cases, they were done for FAR cheaper than Firefly could be. Space-based or futuristic shows are expensive, no getting around it. The only recent one I can think of that'd be close in terms of cost and production value is Flash Gordon - and when the ratings were bad - they canceled it. Farscape was their flagship show, had a big fan following and had been greenlit for a fifth season - yet when ratings dropped, making it no longer profitable, they axed it. BSG was comparable - but it was a big hit for them from the start. Same for Stargate.

It's about money, plain and simple - and that's about it.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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Thursday, October 8, 2009 9:36 AM

MANGOLO

Quote:
Originally posted by Storymark:
It's about money, plain and simple - and that's about it.

It is about money. The way the money thing plays out is a hugely complicated mess that rewards lawyers and accountants more than directors or writers. I've pitched shows to Sci-Fi/SyFy. They will never finance a show 100% - ever. For example, SyFy now has an almost exclusive deal with Manga Entertainment for its animation. They cannot touch a show unless Manga already owns a piece of it and in exchange Manga provides them with animated shows for dime on the dollar. SyFy 'exclusive' movies have to have 50% or more of their financing from sources that don't require any return (like tax incentives, bonds, government financing) or only very long term return which is virtually the same thing. One of my buddies produced two movies for SyFy and they were really bad (he's a lawyer who wants to be a film writer), but SyFy didn't care that they were bad because through my bud's legal expertise the movies were paid for mostly with tax incentives, so SyFy only had to pony up a small part of the budget. They are still on rotation there.

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Thursday, October 8, 2009 10:02 AM

ZZETTA13

So you’re saying Firefly was a dead horse to begin with. It doesn’t matter about quality it matters about cost. I do believe that there are very few shows that have sky high rating at the halfway mark of a season.

Also when I said time slot I meant that it was shown at different times not on a different night and more than once. That’s what I’ve been told anyway, so if my facts aren’t strait I apologize for the mix up in advance.

Joss probably really did need to move his show to China.

Z

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Thursday, October 8, 2009 10:31 AM

STORYMARK

Same time, as far as I know, on Fridays, with the exception of when they aired the 2-hour Serenity.

And no, not a dead horse to begin with. Just a long-shot, which is true for any scifi show, particularly those on one of the major networks. Even moreso when you are dabbling in a genre (westerns) that hasn't been popular for several decades.

Yeah, few shows have sky-high ratings right away. But few shows are set in space, have 9 lead characters, and involve a lot of FX. And even those cheaper shows get axed if they have bad ratings.

As for quality v cost.... no, that doesn't really matter - which sucks, but that's the way it is. It's cost v return that they're worried about. Any TV exec that keeps an expensive, low-rated show going for long, just because they think it's really good, is likely going to get fired - because they're loosing money for the company. No matter what business you're talking about - loosing money is generally frowned upon, even if there are people the LOVE the reason the money is lost.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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Thursday, October 8, 2009 10:55 AM

MANGOLO

What I was trying to point out is that it isn't simply about cost. It is about who will pick up the tab. If the German government's film incentive program will provide the financing and the Bulgarian government will kick down a dollar for every two that you spend there and the BBC will provide the studio space at cost and the VFX are covered by an incentive in Canada then the costs don't matter- but you need good lawyers and accountants in the development stage - so you have a bunch of stuff that is produced not by filmmakers, but by companies that are run by lawyers and bankers who understand these complex fiscal/legal structures.

For example (and I hope you read this because I should be working!)- LARA CROFT - basically made no money over its total cost, but the script was registered in Germany which allowed them to use German bonds for half the financing. The studio was in England which gave them certain credits. The place where they shot it also ponied up some fiscal incentives. So, this film budgeted at $115 million cost the studio only $30 million in up front dollars and they had to only had to pay back an additional $30 million AFTER the movie came out.

Like I said, not simply about cost. Somebody wrote that Joss was dedicated to keeping the production in SoCal which does have some tax credits, but they don't offset the high price of labor and location work there. Other expensive series choose a locale for lower costs and much bigger tax breaks and government fiscal support like shooting in Canada (Stargate, BSG) or Australia (Farscape).

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Thursday, October 8, 2009 11:59 AM

STORYMARK

I see it as the same thing. The reason studios want other avenues for funding is so they don't have to pay it all, and thus reap a higher profit.

That's why I said it's cost v. return.

Sure, there are tax breaks and shelters around, and those can help productions get moving (for example, I should be working on my grant proposal for a film right now, instead of typing this), but what that really comes down to is shifting the cost v return ratio toward a higher return.

And yeah, I was aware of the Tomb Raider story, with Paramount putting up no money for the production (though I think they still put in millions for the ad campaign), but that particular German tax loophole was closed about 2 years back, largly thanks for Dr. Uwe Boll.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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Thursday, October 8, 2009 1:52 PM

ZZETTA13

All I know is I want more Firefly/Serenity and I’ll foot the bill. I’m good for it so somebody get started

!!

Z

Still holdin, my coat is a brownish color.

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Thursday, October 8, 2009 2:20 PM

ECGORDON

There's no place I can be since I found Serenity.

I hear ya, zetta, I want more too but I don't expect Sci-Fi to be our savior. They had the chance (along with other networks) to pick the show up but they passed, and the most likely reason is the expense.

As for the confusion about FOX's broadcast schedule for Firefly, it was preempted for baseball a couple of times, as well as being skipped over two weeks in a row in November 2002, once for a repeat of a Brady Bunch reunion movie of all things.

However, when it was broadcast it was always Friday night at 8pm Eastern, although I have heard reports that some stations delayed it to a later hour or the weekend due to some local sports preemptions, but that wasn't the network's doing.

Still, rejecting the two-hour pilot for supposedly being too slow moving with not enough action and humor, forcing Joss and Tim to barnstorm a new pilot episode in just a couple of days, plus airing some of the eps out of order on top of the preemptions and poor promotion all combined to hurt Firefly.

wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

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Thursday, October 8, 2009 3:49 PM

ZZETTA13

Howdy ECGordon and thanks for the info.

I’ve been here over three and a half years and as a newbie back in 06 hearing the grumbling of veteran browncoats had me convinced that it wasn’t totally the fans fault. The network does need to share at least in part for it’s failure. I may have been slow in getting here, but I’m here.

I understand that the show may have been a little high priced, and I don’t blame the network for the initial cancellation, but after dvd sales began to skyrocket you would think that they’d have assigned someone to look into things. See if it were viable to bring it back. A small mini-series woulda been nice.

I just saw a tv program with George Lucas where he said that Start Wars was almost canned. Cost over-runs and film delays causing anxiety and stress among the studio execs there too. Same thing with Star Trek. The beauty here being that those fabulous shows were allow to go forward and reach potential. Those studio boys all patting themselves on the back for all the confidence they had in the project…..yeah right!

To bad FF was the one that didn’t get a reprieve from the ax man.

Sometime you have to spend money to make money. If someone knows how to make $$$ with no effort they must be keeping it a secret.

Z

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Thursday, October 8, 2009 4:39 PM

MANGOLO

Quote:
Originally posted by zzetta13:

Sometime you have to spend money to make money. If someone knows how to make $$$ with no effort they must be keeping it a secret.

Z

Enron did it.

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Friday, October 9, 2009 9:44 PM

SHINYGOODGUY

It is all about the money. I've read all the posts here and agree that studios, especially in these economic times, only think of how to make the studios money without risk.

(Enron did it - LOL)

Despite the fact that this show has had this loyal following, and increasing every day, for so long should send a message to those patting themselves on the back. I would think that a mini-series would be the perfect vehicle for a return to FF. Limited cost, substantial gain (DVD sales would skyrocket),
minimum risk.

But here's something that I read somewhere that may put a crimp in that idea. As I remember it, Fox has the TV rights sewed up 'til 2012. So if anyone is going to profit, it will be Fox. Unless, of course, if a huge and rich company were to buy them out. Seriously doubt that will happen.

Here's my simple solution: Fox and Universal, our Hulu benefactors, should combine resources and produce the FF mini-series and split the profits.
Oh no, wait, then Fox would have to admit to making a mistake about canceling in the first place. This is the same company that (again with the Hulu!) places FF in the Classic Fox series on, say it with me, Hulu.

Classic FUBAR.

Long live our BDH.

SGG

Tawabawho?

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Friday, October 9, 2009 9:53 PM

SHINYGOODGUY

P.S. While I'm at it - Who made this show a Classic, as Fox puts it...................WE DID!

So there!

Low down dirty, deceivers.

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

SGG

Tawabawho?

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