Hope for the future? by dreamtrove

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Hope for the future?

POSTED BY: DREAMTROVE
UPDATED: Tuesday, October 11, 2005 11:29
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Tuesday, October 11, 2005 9:57 AM

I want to hear people's thoughts on whether or not Serenity was a success from the point of view of reviving the series.
I was very optimistic, but it's I think it's a mixed bag.

On the down side:

Serenity as a film was a flop. It did not gain mainstream appeal and box office receipts are low in spite of a fair amount of promotion.

On the up side:

Sales of Firefly, the original series on DVD have skyrocketed. Firefly now holds the #1 spot on Amazon for the category telivision, and #4 for DVD.

I suspect this should be fairly convincing evidence if presented to the networks, considering there are many releases of television seasons of still extant shows which are much much newer releases than firefly. Ultimately I suppose total sales will have to be tallied and an actual estimate of audience.

I don't really have any idea how to do that, but I have some estimate of what the goal would have to be. Buffy was touch and go with 4 million viewers and a $2M budget. Viewer numbers dipped and the slayer was cancelled at the end of season 5. Firefly also has around a $2M/ep budget. My suspicion is that there are about one million Firefly fans or potential viewers, similar to buffy at it's start.

I guess the things that would need to be done would be to first of all prove that this was the case, or better, and second of all to show in what way firefly might grow to a number of say 5 million regular viewers which would be enough to support the show.

Questions, Comments?

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Tuesday, October 11, 2005 10:01 AM

SPINLAND

The first thing to do would have to be to overcome the licensing obstacles which (IIRC) currently prevent the series from ever being resurrected--at least within a decade. Potential numbers of fans don't mean much in that light. People with more exacting information about the legal tangles involved, please feel free to amplify/correct this post.

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I don't know what your problem is, but I bet it's hard to pronounce.

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Tuesday, October 11, 2005 10:17 AM

OBIWAN

If I understand it correctly, FOX owns the TV rights. They can be purchased from FOX. They also get the revenue from the Series DVD sales. So they win either way with the current situation. That makes them happy.

I'd think that if box-office results generate enough momentum then FOX would be advised to work out a deal to sell the rights, provided there's a buyer. That becomes the real question. Is that buyer UPN? SciFi? USA? Spike? FX? Joss himself?

FOX stands to make more money if they sell within the next year than if they wait.

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Tuesday, October 11, 2005 10:25 AM

SIGGGY

I love both the movie and the series and wish to see either one keep going. I would like them to sell a remastered firefly with 5.1 surround sound, has anyone heard anything of this being planned?

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Tuesday, October 11, 2005 10:30 AM

REXPOP

Indeed. I think the best bet in the near future is probably SciFi. The friday night showings have been pulling in decent ratings (around the 1 million mark) for a two year old show that is already a best selling DVD. It might be worth writing a letter or two to say how much you've been enjoying the show and asking are there any plans to make more. (I think the address was mentioned in some other thread).

The best time to do this is probably now as SciFi have just come off a record third quarter and so are probably looking for ways to expand their ratings further. 'Firefly'/'Serenity' has a solid million plus audience to build off, which makes it an excellent show for them to pick up and run with, rather than some unknown.

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Tuesday, October 11, 2005 11:29 AM

DREAMTROVE

Sci-fi scares me. Particularly I don't like Bonnie Hammer's style of program management, and even scarier, I am not at all fond of the feedback they have given to past shows such as farscape on the direction they would like for the storyline to go.

Close examination of the sci-fi channels meddling vastly exceeds what joss has gotten in the past from wb and upn, which only asked him not to run anymore "fast food is a sucky place to work" shows.

But true it's better than nothing. The thought of Fox renewing it is, of course, infinitely superior.

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