Serenity Screenings Sell Out

DizzyEllie writes "Last Wednesday, Universal offered fans of Joss Whedon's Serenity the unique opportunity to screen an unfinished version of the movie in ten cities. This was originally intended to pull both fans and non-fans into the fold, but the screenings sold out so quickly (less than a day for all cities to sell-out, but reportably just a few minutes in a couple of locations), it is clear that only the hard-core fanbase will make it in. This seemed to be completely unexpected by Universal, as ads were appearing in newspapers after the sell out, and incentives for the fans to promote the screenings were removed. The screenings will be held in 10 cities on May 5. Serenity: The Official Movie Website" Definitely a unique promo thing. Shows serious stones too- I mean, if the movie sucked, they wouldn't dare do something like this. Hopefully someone will post a review for us on wednesday. And the rest of us suckers have to wait until September. Bah.

This isn't news

[pcgamez]

Take any movie of any size and have screenings in 10 cities. It WILL sell out. With ~300M people and lets say 1000 seats, it is not hard to find a few people excited to see it.

focus grouping

[astrashe]

Doesn't this suggest (I didn't say prove, just suggest) that they're making the movie by committee with focus group data?

I don't know if that's a good thing or not. Most good movies are more organic -- they're the result of someone's vision, expressed with comparatively small amounts of interference.

But then again, I'm already planning on not going to the last Star Wars movie [strasheim.org], so I'm out of step.

Re:focus grouping

[ewg]

I hope they're not going to let the hardcore fans write the Serenity movie--I watched the Firefly show on DVD and did not end up liking at much as many of my friends did.

For me, the Serenity movie is a chance for the Firefly team to show me something different.

Wait till September?

[AndroidCat]

That depends. After the screenings, a screener on p2p seems inevitable. (Now there's a conflict of /. ethics!)

Re:Joss Whedon....Who???

[geminidomino]

Nah, it's actually pretty good.

They gave it a Friday night, 8pm slot.
They seriously under-promoed it.
Then they showed the episodes out of order.
Then they pre-empted it several times for baseball.
Then they decided to pull it.

And, lest you think this is just fanboy BS:
They released the DVD set. It reached amazon's top 5(10? something like that) in a matter of days. That's selling like Star Wars.

Re:Common practice

[rijrunner]

It is very unusual to show to a general purchasing audience. Usually test audiences are culled from standard test groups and are targetted demographics. They will be doing that also.

I suspect that this is a new interesting marketting attempt. They get paid to show the movie in advance to a small group. That will raise interest in the film and awareness a bit. It is not even free marketting as the fanbase will pay for this. I seem to recall a couple other instances of this sort of thing, but they are rare.

I seriously doubt they would do this if they did not think they had something though. A lot of the flamebait on here is blathering about the fanboy base and *nobody* flames a franchise more than an upset fanboy.

A test audience signs non-disclosure agreements. They *want* people to talk about this. Not quite viral marketting, but they definately think that word-of-mouth will sell this. Since their dvd sales were pretty much all word-of-mouth and sold about 5 million set to date, there is a certain logic to that.

Re:Joss Whedon....Who???

[Anonymous Coward]

Fox's existence (along with all other networks') is the decline of society. The fact that people pine over TV shows called Firefly instead of classic lit is the decline of society. You have it all wrong.

Re:Joss Whedon....Who???

[J. J. Ramsey]

Another problem was that the first couple episodes were a little off. The pacing was slow, and the tension wasn't *quite* right. They weren't that bad, but a certain "oomph" was missing. The episodes that came along after they rejiggered the intro were much better. I think what happened it that someone cracked a whip and got the writers to give their 100%.

Unfortunately, those who formed their opinion of the whole series from those first couple episodes probably got turned off by it.

Re:Common practice

[jordand]

My understanding is that the test screenings have already occurred. The forthcoming screenings I would imagine are basically a bone that Universal is throwing to the fans, since the movie was supposed to be released already. (It was pushed back to September, apparently so it wouldn't be swamped by some other prominent sci-fi releases.)

Re:If the movied sucked...

[angrist]

If the movie sucks, then this is early enough that they can change it.

Re:CGI cities

[MayonakaHa]

One thing I really liked about the show and that I hope they do in the movie too is the camera movements when showing something in space. It had all the feel of a guy looking out the window with a handheld camera. Nothing was perfectly centered in frame, zoom was used liberally, and there was a delayed focus when something was zoomed in on. It gave it more of a 'real' feel to me.

Re:Great trailer

[Gudlyf]

Or, before George Lucas got hold of the movie:

Bad Guy: I want to work this out like civilized men. I'm not...
Mal: Good. *BLAM*
Bad Guy: ...threaten...uh...

Re:focus grouping

[thinkninja]

As a fan of Firefly, it had better not be much of a departure from the core elements of the series.

If you and the rest of the general public don't like it that much, tough shit.

Re:The movie will still bomb

[Gossi]

Here's something you forgot to type: In your opinion.

Given that a lot of the Firefly episodes were written/directed by Joss, I'm not sure how he was trying to do an impression of himself.

Re:Great trailer

[NOLAChief]

First time you watch "Serenity" (TV pilot), you expect Mal to have a tense confrontation with the Alliance agent holding River hostage.

First time you watch "The Train Job", you expect Mal to wind up with Niska's tattooed goon as a continual nemesis.

He kills them both in cold (OK, they were bad guys, lukewarm) blood. It is entirely possible that's how that bad guy dies, not that him dying will be the end of the story since I guarantee he isn't the only bad guy.

That said, you're probably right, at least with point 1. The lack of kneecaps can be an effective interrogation tool.

Re:OT: Goodbye karma.

[Mac Degger]

You might think it sucks...good for you. Buit as for thsi:

"Where is his science?"

Well, Firefly is just about the only sci-fi series to actually /not have sound in space/! You know, just like in real life? And the reason for using oldfashioned six-shooter type guns is pretty decently explained in the series itself.

So whilst you might not like Firefly (I do, because it doesn't resemble Buffy much at all: Firefly is funny and has well thought out, rounded characters instead of the buffy-characiture), you can't say the show's science is bad.

Re:ripoff

[Cordath]

Star Wars itself lifted concepts and even entire scenes, right down to the wipes, from "The Hidden Fortress" as well as numerous other sources. You'd be surprised at just how good Lucas was at ripping things off. Go watch some old republic serials sometime. In any case, who cares? Star Wars combined what it ripped off in new ways and it was good. Damned good.

If you want to draw parallel's between Han Solo and Firefly's captain, who both happen to wear remarkably similar pants, might I point out that's a friggin' good thing. Firefly's captain isn't the digitally sanitized Han Solo of today, or any of the revoltingly bland characters from the new Star Wars series. He's not some up-tight stick in the mud like every Star Trek Captain since Picard. (Kirk was perhaps a little too loose I admit... He had serious issues keeping it in his pants!) We're talking about a died-in-the-wool loveable scoundrel. Sci-Fi hasn't had one in ages!

Re:wtf is serenity?

[pennyher0]

I agree that the trailer is formulaic. That was a marketing strategy to pull in the mainstream "i want to see shit explode" audience.

But the show itself is not formulaic. It subverts a lot of different "sci-fi" and even TV-series-in-general expectations. No vinyl-clad halloween-esque aliens with more make-up than my dead grandfather, no scantily clad crew members who have no real business being scantily clad (Inara's a Companion. Dressing beautifully is part of her job description. and she's never scantily clad anyway), the dialogue is FUNNY and entirely character driven... and the characters are complex rather than based on single opposing traits.

In the "literary" sense, the series really doesn't belong on mainstream tv at all because that's not the kind of thing that gets played on mainstream tv.

Buffy had a fanbase because it had pretty faces, yes. But this series has a fanbase (much bigger and with a higher average IQ than the buffy fanbase) because it's a GOOD series.

Re:But why Firefly?

[batkiwi]

1. After the success of buffy and angel, Universal has "faith" in Joss's ability to draw people in.

2. The sales data for the DVDs are supporting evidence for #1 and #3

3. It didn't make it out of its first season due to internal Fox politics, nothing to do with the quality of the show itself.

If it was just the show, why is Fox refusing to sell the TV rights to Universal/UPN (like they did for angel AND buffy after canning them)? It's only through a contract oversight that Joss was allowed to have Universal make the movie; Fox has firefly (as well as the next 2-3 show ideas Joss has) "locked up" as far as TV series go for the next something like 5-6 years.

They talk about all of this in the extras on the DVD, but in an obtuse way to avoid lawsuits and the like. If you put that together with some Joss and co interviews, it paints a very specific picture.

Re:Great trailer

[GeorgeMcBay]

If those three movies are successful, it might make Fox eager to order new seasons...


If the three movies are successful, the stars involved will have become "movie stars" and would be unlikely to agree to go back to doing a TV show. Granted, there are cases where "movie stars" have gone back and done TV, but they are few and far between (good luck getting the whole cast back) and usually don't happen until the "movie star" has had a string of high profile movie flops.

So, damned if you do, damned if you don't. I'll eat my hat if Firefly makes it back to tv as a regular series.