More Chatter About Serenity Sequel

Hmmm...

Loni Peristere, visual-effects supervisor for the SF movie Serenity, told SCI FI Wire that there's hope for future flights of the cast and crew of the movie, which just came out on DVD. Director Joss Whedon—who also created the canceled Fox TV show Firefly, on which the movie is based—expected that the movie might draw the low numbers it did in its theatrical release, Peristere said in an interview. But he added that the movie's sales on DVD, which came out on Dec. 20, are running neck-and-neck with the hit comedy Wedding Crashers, which bodes well for a possible Serenity sequel.

"We kind of expected this from our audience," Peristere said. "We did so well on [Amazon.com] with the Firefly box set and the performance of that helped us get the movie made. We wish the audience would get up and go to the theater, but it shows that they like to keep coming back and revisiting the world Joss created." Serenity made $25 million at the domestic box office after it was released Sept. 30.

Evidence that the DVD market is replacing theatrical box office as a barometer of success, but are good DVD sales enough to make a sequel with box office being that weak? $25 million is, well, horrible.

Why don't they just try for a show again? Maybe that's a more expensive proposition than a movie. But the series obviously has a fan base. Yes, it was cancelled once (maybe even twice), but the odds of a Firefly relaunch being a hit have to be an order of magnitude higher than for any truly new show.

Maybe they could just call it Law & Order: Illegal Transport Unit and guarantee themselves decent numbers.

Thanks to OregonMuse.

posted by Ace at 10:32 AM

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