Last night I (and some other Serious Magicians) were privileged to see the rough cut of Serenity the new FireFly movie which will premiere Sept 30th. FireFly was the excellent sci-fi TV series that aired briefly before Fox television managed to kill it by burying it on Friday nights, not promoting it, and running the serial episodes out of order. Firefly was a fantastic demonstration of what a sci-fi TV series could be after the dissapoinments of Star Trek Voyager and Enterprise.
When the show was prematurely cancelled, it's creator Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Titan A.E) didn't stop trying to get FireFly in front of an audience. Proving the idiocy of Fox, the series DVD boxed set sold a million copies in short order and has gone on to be one of the best selling boxed sets of all time. Universal got smart and snatched up the feature film rights from Fox.
Last night was a special screening that was packed with a hardcore sci-fi crowd. The film print was definitely rough and seemed to be a video res output direct from the editing system. Color timing had not been completed so many scenes were too dark or blown out. The audio had not yet been sweetened in some places and the music was a temp track.
With all that said, this film rocks. George Lucas should grab a notepad and go see it. It is an object lesson in how acting, dialog and chemistry make or break a movie. At a rumoured budget of only $30-$40 million this film so blows away the most recent Star Wars that it's really hard to compare the two. Producer/Director Joss Whedon has created a compelling universe completely devoid of the likes of Ewoks and Jar-Jar. I highly recommend this film and encourage everyone to see it opening weekend in September.
Last night, just before the film started a guy walked to the front of the theater. It took everyone a second to process who it was. The movie's star Nathan Fillion (Capt. Malcolm Reynolds) surprised the preview audience by appearing in person. Nathan travelled all the way to Sacramento to answer questions for half an hour and sign autographs for all that wanted them. It was a terrific gesture of support by the film's star to be out personally promoting the film like this.
Joss Whedon recorded a humorous and heartfelt 'preamble' that played before the film wherein he thanked the fans for supporting the show, the DVD and ultimately making the film possible (and jokingly pointing out that if the film sucked it would be the fans fault for making it possible). He talked directly about how they are hoping that fans will build a grass roots movement over the summer to ensure the success of the film when it opens in the Fall. It is really cool to see how the cast and crew are so into promoting the film special screenings and fan based events. It seems that they are trying to turn their 'underdog' reputation into an advantage. The fact that they are out selling tickets to a fairly large number of special advance screenings of the workprint so far in advance of the opening marks a new kind of word-of-mouth marketing campaign for a major studio release. Here's hoping it works for them, because this film deserves to be seen.
--- Mark
PS I just love how Whedon has his characters play against type at almost every turn. For example, when the Captain is about to go off alone into grave peril leaving the rest of the crew on the ship, he says to the crew "Look, if I'm not back in an hour, you get this ship in the air and... come rescue me!" as opposed to the trite "... save yourselves and don't look back". The film is full of those kinds of lines and they never failed to get a big laugh from the crowd.
You can see the trailer here: http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/serenity/
When the show was prematurely cancelled, it's creator Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Titan A.E) didn't stop trying to get FireFly in front of an audience. Proving the idiocy of Fox, the series DVD boxed set sold a million copies in short order and has gone on to be one of the best selling boxed sets of all time. Universal got smart and snatched up the feature film rights from Fox.
Last night was a special screening that was packed with a hardcore sci-fi crowd. The film print was definitely rough and seemed to be a video res output direct from the editing system. Color timing had not been completed so many scenes were too dark or blown out. The audio had not yet been sweetened in some places and the music was a temp track.
With all that said, this film rocks. George Lucas should grab a notepad and go see it. It is an object lesson in how acting, dialog and chemistry make or break a movie. At a rumoured budget of only $30-$40 million this film so blows away the most recent Star Wars that it's really hard to compare the two. Producer/Director Joss Whedon has created a compelling universe completely devoid of the likes of Ewoks and Jar-Jar. I highly recommend this film and encourage everyone to see it opening weekend in September.
Last night, just before the film started a guy walked to the front of the theater. It took everyone a second to process who it was. The movie's star Nathan Fillion (Capt. Malcolm Reynolds) surprised the preview audience by appearing in person. Nathan travelled all the way to Sacramento to answer questions for half an hour and sign autographs for all that wanted them. It was a terrific gesture of support by the film's star to be out personally promoting the film like this.
Joss Whedon recorded a humorous and heartfelt 'preamble' that played before the film wherein he thanked the fans for supporting the show, the DVD and ultimately making the film possible (and jokingly pointing out that if the film sucked it would be the fans fault for making it possible). He talked directly about how they are hoping that fans will build a grass roots movement over the summer to ensure the success of the film when it opens in the Fall. It is really cool to see how the cast and crew are so into promoting the film special screenings and fan based events. It seems that they are trying to turn their 'underdog' reputation into an advantage. The fact that they are out selling tickets to a fairly large number of special advance screenings of the workprint so far in advance of the opening marks a new kind of word-of-mouth marketing campaign for a major studio release. Here's hoping it works for them, because this film deserves to be seen.
--- Mark
PS I just love how Whedon has his characters play against type at almost every turn. For example, when the Captain is about to go off alone into grave peril leaving the rest of the crew on the ship, he says to the crew "Look, if I'm not back in an hour, you get this ship in the air and... come rescue me!" as opposed to the trite "... save yourselves and don't look back". The film is full of those kinds of lines and they never failed to get a big laugh from the crowd.
You can see the trailer here: http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/serenity/
