Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Sci-Fi Media Movies

Second Round of Serenity Screenings Sold Out 199

Posted by CowboyNeal from the just-can't-wait dept.
j1ggl3x writes "From a Rotten Tomatoes news article: 'Following the sell-out success of the May 5th pre-screenings, creator Joss Whedon recently announced that more advance previews of his movie Serenity would appear at twenty theaters in twenty cities, this time on May 26th. By the next morning, well before the official list of cities was posted, fans on the Serenity movie site and elsewhere had diligently located half the listings through trial and error and several of the locations were already sold out. Serenity hits theaters on September 30th.'"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Second Round of Serenity Screenings Sold Out More

Second Round of Serenity Screenings Sold Out

Comments Filter:

  • Man, Fox really dodged a bullet (Score:5, Funny)

    by blonde rser ( 253047 ) on Thursday May 12, 2005 @10:57PM (#12515966) Homepage
    Good thing fox cancelled Firefly. There's clearly no public interest in that franchise.

    • Re:Man, Fox really dodged a bullet (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Sancho ( 17056 ) on Thursday May 12, 2005 @11:11PM (#12516064) Homepage
      The question will be whether die-hard fans will be the ONLY ones who see the show when it gets a wide release. The show pretty clearly had a huge fanbase (given the record sales on Amazon and pre-screenings that sell out before they're announced) but even if every fan sees the movie once, it won't be enough to warrant a sequel if no one else sees it.

      I was lucky enough to attend one of the first 10 screenings. I think the film is good enough to make it on its own except for the character development. Firefly fans won't have a problem here, but with 9 characters to deal with, there just isn't enough time in a 2 hour movie to really introduce them all, much less give any real information about them which would let them shine. I hope this doesn't detract from the film for the general audience.
      • My sister managed to get me a ticket, too. I'd seen only a few episodes prior and thought the movie was amazing. I agree that for the main characters, though, there's little character development. Maybe it's Joss's plan to get more people into the TV series by making it necessary to see the show for a full understanding of the movie.

      • Re:Man, Fox really dodged a bullet (Score:5, Funny)

        by DarkTempes ( 822722 ) on Thursday May 12, 2005 @11:50PM (#12516286)
        the general film audience likes character development?

        i thought they just liked explosions and sex.

        • Berman? (Score:5, Funny)

          by zCyl ( 14362 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @05:44AM (#12517690)
          the general film audience likes character development?

          i thought they just liked explosions and sex.

          Rick Berman? Is that you? Tell us more of this great wisdom about how to pummel a science fiction franchise into the ground.
      • As a fan, I've been doing my part. I've been loaning out my DVDs to anyone who likes sci-fi. 100% positive feedback. Plus, they all plan on seeing the movie.

        If you want Firefly to come back, you have to get more people interested in it.
      • The show pretty clearly had a huge fanbase (given the record sales on Amazon and pre-screenings that sell out before they're announced) but even if every fan sees the movie once, it won't be enough to warrant a sequel if no one else sees it.

        So you know how many fans there are?

    • Fox cancelled it because of politics (Score:5, Funny)

      by DrJimbo ( 594231 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @12:07AM (#12516382)
      In the Firefly series the big bad was a combination of a corrupt corporation and a near fascist government.

      Fox couldn't stand having themselves portrayed as the baddies.

      • In the Firefly series the big bad was a combination of a corrupt corporation and a near fascist government.
        Fox couldn't stand having themselves portrayed as the baddies.
        Oh, I don't know. I think I recall that there were some idiot crooks in Firefly, too ;)

  • Fox Drops the Ball Yet Again (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Luigi30 ( 656867 ) on Thursday May 12, 2005 @11:00PM (#12515993)
    So has Fox dropped another franchise on its way to success? Are they going to pick the ball back up like they did with Family Guy?

    • Re:Fox Drops the Ball Yet Again (Score:5, Informative)

      by Sancho ( 17056 ) on Thursday May 12, 2005 @11:05PM (#12516028) Homepage
      Universal currently has a contract to make (I believe) as many Firefly movies as they want (there are currently talks of having it be a trilogy). However no one can make a Firefly TV show for something like 3 years.. so maybe after that we'll see a revamp of the show, although Mutant Enemy would be fools to try to get it on Fox.
      • The story I heard was Fox had exclusive access to TV rights for 10 years, so that would leave about 8 years.
        • Interesting. I'm pretty sure it was Nathan Fillian who quoted 3 years (at one of the screenings), but don't quote me on that.
          • Fox had a 10 year broadcast contract. That expires in 2011.

            Fillian might have been referring to the actor's contracts. That would be a different deal, but I do not know the terms of those.
            • I suspect that Fillion meant that *Universal* was blocking the TV show for the next three years. I.e. for the next three years, Serenity can only appear on the big screen.

              Universal would have to be worried that Fox might renew the show and they'd lose all the advantages from the movie. Sequels are easy, safe money. If Universal is taking the risk of a possible flop of a movie (Whedon has had far more success with TV than movies -- his best aspect is his ability to evolve characters in interesting ways o
          • I don't remember anything like that mentioned at the Austin screening (which was where he was last week), but I may be misremembering.
            In any case, he *did* say something along the lines of "The TV show is over. We have the movie now."

            It was fairly obvious from everything else related said that Joss has no love for Fox, and I have a feeling that even if they offered the show back at this point, he wouldn't take it, since that's kind of how their mistreatment of the show began -- they got him for a show
      • (there are currently talks of having it be a trilogy)

        To be fair, that is a trend in Hollywood right now. They all want to have the next magic money making trilogy, so they get all the actors to sign for 3 movies. If the first one is a phenomenal sucess: they make 2 more.

        • A trend right now? Trilogies have been "the trend" in Hollywood for decades. Raiders of the Lost Ark? Star Wars? The Godfather? They've just gotten more shrewd about keeping options for trilogies open when launching a movie with possible trilogy potential.

          Personally, I think they should stuff the whole "trilogy" concept where Firefly is concerned .. just keep making movies, a la Star Trek, as long as they bring the money in. Who cares how many there are?

          Btw, wouldn't it be cool to have a scene where the S

      • I wonder how they'd classify straight to DVD, direct sale episodes?

        I know I like it enough to spend $20 per episode delivered weekly/monthly.

        Not quite movie, not quite TV...

        • Unsure. I think $20/ep is a bit steep, though. Even for new content.

          Currently, one of the highest cost TV shows is Star Trek. MSRP is $130 for season 1, 29 episodes. That's about $4.50 per episode. Season 2 runs the same price for 26 episodes, or $5 per episode. Same for Enterprise season 1. Babylon 5 has similar costs.

          For comparison, Buffy: the Vampire Slayer's MSRP for a complete season (say, season 2) is $60 for 22 episodes, or about $2.75. Dead Like Me goes for about $4.25/ep, Penn and Teller'
    • Don't assume success to soon. Remember Private Parts, the Howard Stern movie? It opened HUGE, and did major box office for a couple of weeks. But once all his fans had seen it (sometimes twice), it's numbers dropped faster than one of his stripper guests dropping her top. What had been hailed as mega-hit actually ended up losing money. The fact is, the average person has probably never even heard of the Firefly series. So while it may be a snap to get fans excited, it's going to have a really tough time cr

  • Sold out before they were even announced. (Score:4, Informative)

    by jaysedai ( 595022 ) on Thursday May 12, 2005 @11:01PM (#12515998)
    Several of the screenings sold out before they were even announced. Many enterprising Browncoats "hacked" the Fandango URL until they found the screenings.

  • To the point. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 12, 2005 @11:03PM (#12516013)
    "By the next morning, well before the official list of cities was posted, fans on the Serenity movie site and elsewhere had diligently located half the listings through trial and error and several of the locations were already sold out."

    Ladies and Gentlemen. Now THOSE are fans.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday May 12, 2005 @11:07PM (#12516037)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Joss Whedon - Creator of Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Angel.

      Serenity - Feature length film based on Firefly, which Fox cancelled a couple of years ago.

    • Re:I'm going to be asked to turn in my geek badge. (Score:5, Informative)

      by kalidasa ( 577403 ) * on Thursday May 12, 2005 @11:17PM (#12516106) Journal
      "Serenity" - a forthcoming movie based upon Joss Whedon's television series *Firefly*, which was a near-hard SF show set about 400 years in the future after mankind had migrated to another star system. The show is about the crew of a ship, Serenity, that straddle the boundaries of legality (smuggling, but nothing bad; carrying fugitives from the big bad corporate government) and are mostly loyal to their captain, Mal, who is a veteran of the losing side in a civil war against the big bad corporate government. The show depicted two classes of worlds: high-tech core worlds, and low-tech "Western"-style frontier worlds. Joss Whedon wrote Alien: Resurrection, and created Buffy the Vampire Slayer (both movie and tv show), Angel, and a few other things.

      • Re:I'm going to be asked to turn in my geek badge. (Score:5, Informative)

        by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @12:40AM (#12516594) Homepage
        It's also important to point out that Firefly, like Joss's better work, was a "serial," in that later episodes depended upon previous episodes to make any sense. Unfortunately, and dumfoundingly, Fox decided to air the series out-of-order, which led to the complaints that Firefly was "confusing" and "impossible to follow."

        In other words, Fox blew their own series because they didn't know what they were doing.

        It's also a space western, which is a pretty tough theme to like, but somehow managed to capture the essence of what worked with the episodes of Star Trek that worked. Even though pretty much none of the characters are good guys (the captain kills people who he thinks deserves it, the crew members betray eachother for money, the pilot keeps wearing Hawaiian shirts), they're somehow likable in a bad guy way... Sort of like Han before Lucas bastardized him into a saturday morning cartoon. The old-west themes of cattle rustling and smuggling just add to the charm and the outlaw atmosphere. It was a pretty good step, in other words, to reduce what will likely be a nastily complicated future involving DRM, standards compliances, interoperability problems, technological glitches, and complicated social procedures based upon years of snowballing bureaucracy to something archaically approachable focused more on characters. Not once in the entire 12 episodes was there a spot of technobabble or an episode focused upon getting the holodeck to work. It was all about the characters, which really shined through on the DVD's.

        It was good, but Fox blew their chance by thinking that it was The Simpsons. Hopefully the movie will rectify this to some degree. And if the movie does well, they can replay the TV shows. Most people haven't seen them anyway.

        • It's also a space western, which is a pretty tough theme to like, ... The old-west themes of cattle rustling and smuggling just add to the charm and the outlaw atmosphere.

          I picked up the season 1 DVD recently based on recommendations (plus it was on special and I had enjoyed Buffy & Angel!). I really really liked it, the characters, humour, SFX, plots are great. But it took a few shows to get into and I have to admit that my very first impressions were that it was not as good as everyone said. The on
          • But it took a few shows to get into and I have to admit that my very first impressions were that it was not as good as everyone said.

            Funny, I had the exact opposite impression. It was love at first sight for me and I thought it was even BETTER than everyone had said (if that's possible). It played to me like Star Wars if Lucas had realized his ideas were laughably rediculous and ran with it. But after watching the whole thing, it didn't quite hold up to the promise of the first few episodes. The repeti

        • It's also important to point out that Firefly, like Joss's better work, was a "serial," in that later episodes depended upon previous episodes to make any sense. Unfortunately, and dumfoundingly, Fox decided to air the series out-of-order, which led to the complaints that Firefly was "confusing" and "impossible to follow."

          Are US networks actually geared up to show serials. The paradigm of "show some episodes, repeat some episodes, show some more episodes" appears to be the norm.

          In other words, Fox blew
        • The killing I can deal with... Betrayal for money I can cope with... But dude, those Hawaiian shirts just crossed the line.
        • Fox blew their own series because they didn't know what they were doing.

          Like someone mentioned above [slashdot.org], it could either be superhuman incompetance, or some executive war where one was bright and produced a good show, and the other was cunning and got it on the random shifting time slot of death. In other words: Petty sabotage.

          the pilot keeps wearing Hawaiian shirts

          I wonder if he comes from a core planet of hawaiian shirt people and he got the frontiere job to show off his piloting skills in a less regul
      • In other words, yet another Star Trek / B5 wannabe.
      • "Joss Whedon wrote Alien: Resurrection"

        Way to recommend it, dude... :-p

        James
    • No no no, we don't blame you: We blame Fox.

      However, your geek badge is under review should you choose NOT to watch all the DVDs in less than a week: as per regular first-viewing habits.
      • haha this is so true, i did it with both BSG and firefly, neither of which i had seen before i borrowed the DVDs off a mate. you watch the pilot, and then you watch the next one, just to see what happens, and then before you know it its 4am and you have watched half a series.

        you know you are broken when you get up early to watch more the following morning. of course, doing it this way means you are devasted when you reach the end and there's no more.

    • you can get all the details at serenity.com [serenity.com].

      :)

  • Quick Comment (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 12, 2005 @11:13PM (#12516082)
    You guys need to get the idea out of your head that a highly devoted fanbase is the same as a large fanbase. Just because some rather limited amounts of seats sell out instantly doesn't mean the movie can't flop.
    • You guys need to get the idea out of your head that a highly devoted fanbase is the same as a large fanbase. Just because some rather limited amounts of seats sell out instantly doesn't mean the movie can't flop.

      I think those screenings a a viral marketing ploy: seeding word-of-mouth advertising.

      This movie won't only be reviewed before it's release by a handfull of critics, but also by legions of fans!
  • For the second damn time, I found out about preview screenings off of slashdot, way after the fact. Well, now I've bookmarked the page just in case they add Houston.

  • Wow. (Score:4, Funny)

    by SatanicPuppy ( 611928 ) <Satanicpuppy.gmail@com> on Thursday May 12, 2005 @11:22PM (#12516138) Journal
    Dang, this is popular!

    They should make a TV show out of it or something...
  • I want to know if I should be pi**ed or not about missing out. And on what site are the screenings announced? I didn't see it at the rottentomatoes site linked in the article.
  • are up to over $250 dollars for a pair for the DC show.

  • Canada (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What about Canada, eh?

    Joss, if you bring the movie here early then we will gladly give you some bacon and beer. Think about it and get back to me.
  • Says it all [pvponline.com], for me.
  • is Firefly based off a book? comic book? something else? or is it one of Joss Wheydon's own creation and the first medium was a tv series followed by now a movie.

    I was just curious if the movie actually develops the story or is it a side story that doesn't have to deal much with the main storyline (meaning that one can watch the series and future series w/o watching the movie).

    I'm personally a big FireFly fan and also a big anime fan, but I've been disappointed by anime movies once too often. Anime compan
    • I hope that Serenity's storyline fits with the rest of the story and isn't just some random story made up just for a movie where the series can do without.

      It takes place six month after "Objects in Space", and we get to learn River Tam's story.

      Also: Reavers!
    • I went to the first (May 5) screening and I have to say (as a big fan of the TV show) I was very impressed. They change a few things (personalities, relationships, etc.), but by and large the movie fits very well with the TV show and extends the story in a way that actually makes a lot of sense. Also, the movie kicks ass.
    • If you enjoy Firefly and are even remotely interested in anime, you will find a lot to like in Cowboy Bebop [cowboybebop.org].
  • Ugh! I can't believe I missed a second opportunity.

    mod -1 redundant
  • Anyone else think that having preview screenings in May for a film with a September release date is a bit insane? Why do it almost 5 months before it's released?

    • Re:This early?!?! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by tankd0g ( 875636 )
      To drive Firefly DVD sales of course. And it's working.
    • In short, they want to build "buzz". I worked as a manager in movie theaters for a number of years, and while five months early is a bit extreme, many movies had early screenings to build buzz. There have been several movies that I can remember screenings of that really helped. When "When Harry Met Sally" came out, there were some early screenings and everyone was talking about the orgasm scene. People called us weeks in advance to find out when we were playing it. It sold out every weekend for several

    • This late (Score:3, Informative)

      by Scrameustache ( 459504 )
      Anyone else think that having preview screenings in May for a film with a September release date is a bit insane? Why do it almost 5 months before it's released?

      It was supposed to be released in late march.
      But their producer's marketing department got wind of how much Lucas was putting in his promos and they decided that there was no way they could compete with his advertising, so they pushed it back.

Slashdot Top Deals

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." - Bert Lantz

Close