Is Serenity In Trouble?
So after months of online fuss about how brilliant Serenity was going to be and how it was going to show up Star Wars and how it would launch a new franchise, how are things actually looking for Joss Whedon’s directorial debut? Well not quite that good anyway.
There are some good signs. Reviews have been largely positive. Serenity has a remarkable 81% fresh rating at RottenTomatoes.com. It’s also 114 in IMDb’s top 250 movies listing. However a feeling a gloom seems to have settled over a lot of Firefly fans or Browncoats as they refer to themselves. Why?
Boxoffice isn’t anything like as impressive as the fans were talking themselves into hoping before Serenity’s release. Serenity has only earned an estimated $14,179,000 in its first 8 days. People look at that figure and suddenly Star Wars numbers don’t seem so likely. Reality check. Star Wars numbers were never going to happen. Star Wars PR budget was more than $14 million dollars.
But Serenity doesn’t need to earn Star Wars box office to be a success. Serenity only cost around $40 million to start with. That means that by the time you add US boxoffice to the rest of the world, the film is half way to paying for itself. In 8 days! Now factor in what I would expect to be strong DVD sales worldwide and its a safe bet that Serenity will not lose money.
Of course that doesn’t guarantee there will ever be a Serenity sequel and I think thats why all the doom and gloom. People wanted to see huge opening weekends. Well take a look at the daily boxoffice figures. The biggest thing out there is Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride which made $37,350,000 in 22 days. This isn’t blockbuster season. It’s not the summer and it’s not the Christmas season. Serenity is doing well for the time of year.
The only way there was ever going to be a sequel was if Serenity could build word of mouth and stay in the theaters for weeks. We won’t know the answer to that for another couple of weeks at least. Either way Serenity is not a failure.
Eoghann Irving is amongst other things the creator and Editor of Solar Flare. He has a life long interest in all forms of science fiction and fantasy and a pressing need to share this interest with anyone who will listen. Find out more at his personal website eoghann.com..
2 Comments, Comment or Ping
Brenda
Unfortunately I have to disagree. I would love nothing more to see a million more Serenity/Firefly movies come to pass but I don’t think the numbers look good. Even factoring in the time of year the movie was released, the movie was expected to open much stronger and to have more staying power. While the $10 million opening was acceptable, a 51% drop in box office the second week is abysmal. The chances of Serenity staying in theatres much past week 3 aren’t good. There are dozens of reasons why sequels get greenlit so there’s always hope. But purely from a financial standpoint it wouldn’t make sense for a studio to back another movie. Such a poor showing in the U.S. will weigh heavily - despite what foreigh box office or DVD sales might add. And if folks in the U.S. are barely going to see the movie - how likely is that foreign audiences who had limited exposure to the TV series will buy tickets or that anyone who isn’t a hardcore fan will buy the DVD?
Oct 10th, 2005
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