http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050722/en_nm/film_firefly_dc
Whedon flock ready for 'Firefly' resurrection
By Anne Thompson
Fri Jul 22
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Now that "Star Wars," "Star Trek" and
"The Matrix" are fading into the sunset, what will take their place in the
hearts of sci-fi fantasy fans?
TV auteur Joss Whedon and Universal Pictures are hoping that it's
"Serenity," his movie version of 2002's aborted Fox space Western TV
series "Firefly," which opens Sept. 30.
Universal launched its grass-roots awareness campaign for Whedon's
directing debut in April, recruiting Whedon's loyal fans to help sell
"Serenity," which features the original "Firefly" cast. The studio
previewed the rough cut nationwide in markets where "Firefly" performed
best, culminating last weekend with a rousing screening at the Comic-Con
International confab in San Diego, where Whedon and his cast conducted a
panel for fans.
Back in 2001, when Whedon sat down to write his follow-up to the two hit
Fox series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel," he wanted to try his
hand at a space Western.
"I thought, 'Wagon Train' in space," he said on the phone from Cape Cod,
where he is conceiving his upcoming "Wonder Woman" script.
He didn't know that Gene Roddenberry had set out to do the same thing back
in the 1960s, when he created "Star Trek," a smart TV show that was saved
by its fans.
History is repeating itself.
Starting Friday night at 7, the Sci Fi Channel is showing all 13 episodes
of "Firefly" - in the correct order.
"Fox never got the show," Whedon said. "It was a bad match." After
premiering the series late after a
World Series game and running 11 episodes out of order, Fox dropped it.
"I told the cast the day the show was canceled that I would not rest until
I found another home," Whedon said. "I felt like I had let them down."
Not wanting to admit failure was part of it, too, Whedon admits. "I didn't
want people thinking that the show didn't work. Nothing I've ever done has
ever emerged so instantly. Even the pilot was the way it should be. There
was never an awkward growing phase. It felt right. Every actor felt so
right, they worked so well together. I couldn't bear to let the universe
go, or let the actors out of my sight."
When overseas markets demanded a DVD release, Fox Home Entertainment
complied. The "Firefly" DVD sold more than 200,000 copies.
Whedon felt vindicated. Having soldiered in the feature screenwriting
realm on "Toy Story," "Titan A.E." and an unproduced "X-Men" script,
Whedon told Universal executive Mary Parent that he wanted to make his
directing debut on the movie version of "Firefly." She checked out the
DVDs.
"Write it," she told him.
Renamed "Serenity," after the Firefly-class ship that scours outer space,
the $40 million alien-free movie will register with "Firefly" fans without
confusing people, Whedon says. And the movie retains the show's homemade
feel. "It's like the ship Serenity herself," he said. "Crappy but scrappy."
"Serenity" reunites the original TV cast of nine shipmates in a
dysfunctional family. That was the deal. There was never a question of
upgrading the cast, though Universal did consider hiring a name villain -
and then dropped it. Added to the youthful ensemble headed by Canadian
actor Nathan Fillion, who plays a jocular Kirk-like captain on the
mercenary freighter, are archvillain Chiwetel Ejiofor ("Dirty Pretty
Things") and David Krumholtz ("Numbers") as a hacker hermit. At Comic-Con,
dancer-actress Summer Glau's martial arts scene drew thunderous applause
and an Ain't It Cool News rave.
What generates this powerful response? "What captivates the fans is an
entire world they can go to," Whedon said, "that feels complete,
thought-out, genuine, that they can live in for a long time. From the
first show, we made sure every character had their own patch of ground.
Conflicts become the story. Everybody plays off everybody."
Said Anna Kaufman, arts editor of the Daily Californian in Berkeley,
Calif.: "You feel for the family of nine characters and their well-being.
They all have interesting dynamics, pasts and secrets. They're thrumming
with life." Kaufman checks the many Web sites devoted to Whedon, "Firefly"
and "Serenity" (including http://www.cantstopthesignal.com) for updates on
the movie. "I'm greedy. I want more," she adds.
In October, when Universal's co-president of marketing, Eddie Egan, booked
a routine rough-cut preview in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley, he was amazed
by the explosive response from the research-screening recruits who were
clearly rabid "Firefly" fans. He wanted to know just how they had learned
about the screening.
It turned out that one fan had identified the movie and tipped off her
entire "Firefly" community (known as "browncoats") with one Internet post.
Some of them had driven from Arizona and Seattle, Egan says. Universal,
deciding that it had something bigger than it thought, pushed the action
adventure off of its spring lineup and into the fall.
The studio staged three waves of word-of-mouth sneak preview screenings
(which do not advertise the name of the film) in 35 cities where "Firefly"
had earned the best ratings, including Toronto and San Francisco. Each
time, Whedon posted fan screenings on his blog: once, with a link to a
Fandango site where they could order tickets. Each time, all the tickets
were sold within five minutes. Fans return for repeat viewings, Egan says,
bringing new people with them.
"As the industry struggles to redefine the paradigm of the movie
business," Egan said, "and what makes people go to movies or avoid them, a
piece of text on a Web page sold out theaters."
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scifinoir2/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
