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.

Common practice

[Aneurysm9]

It's fairly common for studios to show workprints to test audiences during the editing phase to get a sense for what works and what doesn't. I'm not so sure what makes this any different.

Great trailer

[fsck!]

I was skeptical that this would ever really happen. Having seen the trailer, I'm very glad I was wrong. It's been a while since I've rewatched the DVD so I don't remember some of the characters names, but these clips from the trailer were hilarious, and a kind of humor sadly absent from most movies:

pilot: (flying into a battle) This is about to get interesting.
captiain: Define "interesting."
pilot: "Interesting: Oh God, oh God, we're all going to die?"

bad guy: This destruction, this is your fault.
pilot: No, *I* don't murder children.
bad guy: [smiling] Oh, well I do.

Pent Up Demand

[DumbSwede]

I rarely re-watch episodes of even my most favorite shows, but Battlestar Galactica is showing on the HDTV Universal Channel and it is glorious in HiDef. Hopefully Universal will re-air the Firefly series. I suspect that if more of the content on the HD channels were Sci-Fi and Fantasy there would be faster buy-in for HD. When you look at DVDs it's always the Sci-Fi and Fantasy stuff that are Mega sellers.

The networks really seem to have a love hate relationship with Sci-Fi Fantasy fans. They are not content to cater to a smaller demographic. While that same demographic will none the less be loyal and unwavering for a good show, and support said show with DVD purchases and Fan sites, proving while maybe a 1/2 to 1/3 the normal demographic for other fair, the long term property value is much Higher. Sci-Fi fans should let advertisers know that they are major consumers and will well reward brands that support our hunger for good alternate fair on TV.

I will probably hear some boos on this, but I find it ironic that Enterprise has been exceptional the last few episodes. I liked it in general, though it could have been better. I was not obsessive about its departure, but now they've decided to go out with a bang and have plots that are not retellings of TOS I am vexed. It would seem we will never get a third Evil-Universe story, it seemed like a cliffhanger. Granted the Evil-Universe thing was used kind of gimmicky in the DS9 series, but Enterprise has it right by leaving the main universe out. Probably just get tired of seeing all the PC hand ringing our characters do, and enjoying seeing people give into some raw animal emotions.

I got my tickets!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

With an announcement by Joss Whedon at the Serenity official web site [serenitymovie.com], the tickets to this event went on sale at just after midnight Wednesday morning. By dawn, most of the cities were sold out. By 9 a.m., all of the cities were sold out.

I happened to trip over the announcement at 1 a.m, woke the wife, and scored our tickets. We're very excited about it!!!

What's it about? One good quote that I read was, "Imagine if Star Wars had been about Han instead of Luke." (but with much, much better writing and no damned cutsie aliens).

There have been several test screenings in the past to tune the movie. Almost always, the word leaked and these turned into flash mob events for Firefly/Whedon fans. This 10 city screening is a little different. The movie is nearly the finished product, but the purpose is to incite the fan base into a word-of-mouth guerilla marketing machine.

Universal apparently thought that there was going to be trouble getting butts into seats, and created a marketing campaign and ads just for this screening. With 30,000+ registered fans at the official Serenity website [serenitymovie.com], they need not have worried about that. A couple of folks have even put their tickets on eBay with bidding now at absurd levels.

This promises to be big! Check out the trailer [apple.com]!

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

[steve_bryan]

Firefly was so badly mishandled by FOX that I'd like to add at least one more piece of information for those who are not familiar with it. When you hear mainly that it is from the creator of Buffy and Angel you might get the idea that you would only be interested if you enjoyed one of those. I've tried watching both of those series off and on but without success.

I only bothered to do so because having seen Firefly in the intended order from the DVD's I'm sold on the idea that it is the best sci fi series ever made for TV. I can't say I have a similar opinion of Mr Whedon's other series but Firefly has such superior writing and characters that I can't imagine even trying to make a comparison to the other franchises that I enjoy but do not admire nearly as much.

If you haven't seen the series or only saw a few confusingly presented episodes from the FOX debacle (boy I hope some of the morons responsible for that were fired) rent the episodes in order from your local video store or NetFlix. I'm not saying I can't imagine a better series but when compared to its peers, Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Farscape, Babylon 5, ... it comes out far ahead.

It's a good thing

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Don't believe that stuff about someone's vision. I think directors work best when faced with difficult constraints and with constant reminders that they're making movies for other people, not just to please themselves. For example look at what has happened with Star Wars now that Lucas has total control. Or look at what happened when the Wachowskis earned enough trust from the studio to make the movie they really wanted to. (And look how good they were on a tiny budget like with Bound.) Whenever I hear a director say "now I can finally make the movie I have always dreamed of" I cringe.

A few years back I worked at a company that did visual effects. The director of a highly succesful movie had come in to make the movie that he really wanted to make and we were going to do the effects. This was story that he really believed in and he told people this. The succesful movie: Mask. The director: Chuck Russell. The movie he truly wanted to make: er...um...Bless the Child.

When a director has freedom to make what they want, it's time to run.

Re:This isn't news

[johnpaul191]

i think the point was that it sold out before the ads were even out. it spread by word of mouth, or online. not shocking to us, but the fact that there were so many people that watched the show (or the DVDs) that still were keeping up to the minute with news.

makes you wonder how the show failed so fast. was it because it was on friday nights, or because it was shown out of sequence (the pilot being shown last) or is the TV rating system flawed enough that they may miss a whole demographic of people that use VCRs/TiVo to catch shows.

-1 Wrong

[Gerad]

I hope you didn't mean that there are about ~300M people in 10 major cities combined, because that's the impression I got from reading your post. The USA* itself only has ~281M people, and Chicago (the largest city that the preview is being shown in) has only about ~3M in the city itself.

Furthermore, I'd be curious to hear where you got your "1000 seats" number, as there is no actual article linking any solid information, other than the official website, which only lists the cities being shown.

*And before anyone accuses me of being a excessively US-centric, the website lists the 10 cities, and they're all here in the USA.

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

[bigbigbison]

I've just never been interested in any of the stuff Whedon's done. I gave Buffy a few chances, I watched 3 or so episodes of Firefly, I flipped through his isses of Amazing X-Men. I just don't get him. Of course that doesn't mean anything is wrong with people who do like him, but I just don't understand it and it seems so very unremarkable.

I mean all the things people mention about his work were also done by Xena, which I thought was a much better show than Buffy (and which had TWO musical episodes before the much talked about musical Buffy episode even aired!), and yet who even knows who created or wrote for that show?

Of course I can't understand why anyone watches baseball either, so what do I know?

Re:check out that sneaky affiliate link in the pos

[Cruciform]

Then kudos to them.

Slashdot is a "link site", not really a news site. Journalistic integrity is neither its strong point, nor a requirement.

If the submitter gets free goodies for being the first to send in the link, more power to them.

But back on topic:

As for whether the movie is good or not... if it's as good as any of the episodes were, but with a bigger effects budget, then it's already more than worth the money that many people spend to go see utter crap in the theatre. Joss is getting my money, it's already a given.

It's all about Han

[Syncdata]

What's it about? One good quote that I read was, "Imagine if Star Wars had been about Han instead of Luke." (but with much, much better writing and no damned cutsie aliens).

Surprisingly, I didn't catch this while firefly was on the air, nor after I watched the DVDs. I was describing the show to a friend of mine, and he says "So it's basically the adventures of Han Solo?" It's really the best synopsis I've heard, and he hadn't watched the show.

I wonder if that's what Whedon had in mind the whole time?