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Any Prospect of Serenity Sequel Quashed 246

Posted by Zonk from the i-told-you-they-could-take-the-sky-from-me dept.
Shadowruni writes "According to IGN.com, there will be no sequel to Serenity." Update: 10/07 01:31 GMT by Z : As enjerth pointed out below, this is not 100% accurate. Don't believe IGN, is the lesson. Here's the word from the man himself: "I turn my back for five minutes (that's how long it takes to admire my lovely back) and the interweb goes banoonoos! Isn't there any ACTUAL news to get wrong? Sorry about all this; it might be best if I just stay off the computer for a while ... The brain place is crowded with goods, ideas, sequels, spinoffs, animated versions, miniseries, radio dramas -- this is just the used goods. All the new wares are in there as well and it's deafening. Once I create a verse I never let go of it. And figuring out how much of my energy should be devoted to reawakening the projects you all love with the actors and characters I all love, and how much should be forging ahead and creating entirely new works (which you are contractually obligated to love) is exhausting."
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Any Prospect of Serenity Sequel Quashed More

Any Prospect of Serenity Sequel Quashed

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  • aw man (Score:2, Funny)

    by codexile ( 879093 )
    That's really too bad. All of my favorite shows keep getting crushed and destroyed. Wonderfalls, Firefly, The Super Mario Brothers Super Show. *sigh*

  • He also made it clear . . . (Score:4, Informative)

    by taustin ( 171655 ) on Friday October 06, 2006 @07:44PM (#16343551) Homepage Journal
    . . . there's no reason it couldn't happen. It just isn't happening now, and is less likely as time goes by.

    • Without giving spoilers for anyone who didn't see Serenity, I think there are several pretty clear reasons that it couldn't carry on, at least not with anything like the same atmosphere as the original Firefly series.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hoggoth ( 414195 )
        > Without giving spoilers for anyone who didn't see Serenity, I think there are several pretty clear reasons that it couldn't carry on, at least not with anything like the same atmosphere as the original Firefly series

        Hey, speaking of no-more-Firefly-ever... I would really like Joss Whedon to reveal what 'Book's big secret was. The movie didn't reveal it, and we will never find out now...

        • well the allusion was that Book was one of those 'no names' like the chica in Firefly and the dude in Serenity. (hope that wasn't a spoiler). Serenity Firefly. Why do that to one of my favorite characters from the series? And why trash his dialogue so handily? And why, out of nowhere do that with River? I mean, yeah, we were gonna get there in like season 2...damned Fox. Long live Jayne!

  • Fair enough... (Score:5, Funny)

    by n9uxu8 ( 729360 ) on Friday October 06, 2006 @07:46PM (#16343567) Homepage
    No sequel...I get it...so tell me about the prequel you are working on... Dave

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by teslar ( 706653 )
      You got it

      "Yeah... that went well..."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Guppy06 ( 410832 )
      Do we really need to see Mal as a drunken frat boy?

      "My dad owns a car dealership!"
    • No sequel...I get it...so tell me about the prequel you are working on... Dave

      I don't want a sequel or a prequel. I want more stories from the time frame the first season was working from.

      !!!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DrJimbo ( 594231 )
      Okay. The prequel starts with a Trade Federation (run by frogs) blockading a planet and causing trouble for a beautiful young princess ...

  • Made a profit (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RedWizzard ( 192002 ) on Friday October 06, 2006 @07:46PM (#16343571)
    TFA is incorrect about Serenity failing to make a profit when including DVD sales. I suspect someone forgot to include the non-US boxoffice. Serenity made $39M on a budget of $39M [boxofficemojo.com] worldwide, and while that does include the marketing (probably around $10M), DVD sales would certainly have resulted in a profit. I believe it made about $13M on DVD and VHS rentals alone.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Jherek Carnelian ( 831679 )

      Serenity made $39M on a budget of $39M worldwide, and while that does include the marketing (probably around $10M), DVD sales would certainly have resulted in a profit.

      Don't forget the Stupid German Money [google.com] that makes a kind of profit even if the movie doesn't. I haven't checked the credits roll for any GmbH listings, but it is virtually certain that stupid german money was used in the production since it has been used in just about every other hollywood production in recent years (for example, all the Uwe B

    • Re:Made a profit (Score:5, Informative)

      by edwardpickman ( 965122 ) on Friday October 06, 2006 @09:04PM (#16344103)
      Actually that's a loss. Some inside quotes. For the first week the studio gets 60% of the boxoffice. After that it generally drops to 50% with it continuing to drop with the theater owners making an increasing percentage, 60%+. The studio would have made a little less than 20 mill off the theatrical take with ten mill for advertising being conservative. If it made 13 mill on DVD sales that means they made back less than 23 mill on a 39 mill investment. That's extremely bad. I think it was badly marketed which cost it sales but it's unlikely to have ever broke even making it a very bad risk for the studio to make sequels. I liked the movie version but it didn't even come close to seeing a profit based on the numbers you provided.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by unitron ( 5733 )
        "For the first week the studio gets 60% of the boxoffice."

        Well, the movie theater has to pay out 90% or more of ticket sales to whoever they get the movie from for that first week, so where does the rest of the money go?

      • There is definitely something missing from those boxofficemojo numbers.
        I don't know what the missing numbers are, but I compared what boxofficemojo had to say about Equilibrium [boxofficemojo.com] which cost $20M and earned the studio close to $10M of profit.

        It has been a few years since I listened to the director's commentary on the DVD, but I am pretty sure that he said that studio had been able to secure a total production budget of $30M, in large part because of the sale of foreign distribution rights.

        Since actual producti
    • Here [newsarama.com] is an more accurate estimation of Serenity's profits from mid-February, taking into account that Universal didn't get all of that money. Nevertheless it definitely made a profit.

      If your $13M for rentals are accurate and DVD sales followed a similar trajectory it could be a good deal more by now but still far from the massive profitability studios expect before they green-light a sequel.

    • It may have made a bit of money, but not enough to make it worth the risk. If they make another one, it will probably cost a similar amount to produce, but may bring in less money.

      If we assume the people who saw the first film out of curiosity don't come back and watch the second, then it could end up losing 10-20 million. The actors will probably want a payrise for a second film as well.

  • Here Is To a BSG Movie (Score:5, Interesting)

    by moore.dustin ( 942289 ) on Friday October 06, 2006 @07:47PM (#16343585) Homepage
    Firefly is over so I can only hope Battlestar Gallactica gets the steam it needs to have a feature film. It could be very well received given the way BSG is grabbing non-SciFi people.

    • I don't really understand this impulse to turn things that are great in one medium into things in another.

      I really love BSG, but I think a lot of its power comes from being a serial television program. Listen to Ron Moore's podcasts and you'll hear him remark on that. What exactly would be so great about a movie that can't be done in a 2- or 3-parter (which they actually do)?

      And similarly, I didn't think Serenity was all that great. I mean, I enjoyed it, but not like the episodes. I have watched the ep

      • Serenity felt a lot like two or three three movies crammed into the time slot of one. The pace was so rediculously fast and they covered so much that it's kind of annoying that way. It also didn't have as much comedy, at least I thought so.
  • I loved both firefly and Serenity, but i dont feel that the film lived of the the high standard of excellences of Wheaton et al. Wonder Woman news im sure will start to come out in a few months and than who knows what. I would love to see a new TV show, maybe something on HBO....that will never happen

  • Sequel would have been sweet... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TimeForGuinness ( 701731 ) on Friday October 06, 2006 @07:48PM (#16343591) Journal
    I didn't follow Firefly, and I saw Serenity about 4 months ago. (Please don't revoke my geek card)

    I must say, it was one of my favorite SciFi flicks to date. It totally surprised me, decent story, decent graphics. I recommended it to a lot of my friends. I described it loosely as if they made a movie about Han Solo. (rugged, funny thief...they almost dressed the same)

    I was looking forward to another movie. I like the SciFiWestern combo that he pulled off.

    Maybe I will just have to start watching Firefly.

    Cheers,
    TFG

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )
      yes you should.
      If you like the movie, the series will thrill you.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by BWJones ( 18351 ) *
      Firefly was everything that Star Wars could have/should have been. Good writing, well developed characters, good acting, right setting, good costumes, good etc...etc...etc...

      Go out and buy Firefly, you will *not* be disappointed.

  • That's really too bad. The show left me flat, but the movie rocked. Ofcourse it only rocked based on my knowledge of the bad TV show. Bit of a paradox here. Shame though.
    • Curious. The movie was OK, but not a patch on the show, IMHO. I liked the leisurely character development in the latter.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Che Guevarra ( 85906 )
        I believe it was the pace of the show and the production value (lack of FX) that left me flat. There was never anything wrong with the characters, just something about the western theme and the civil war music. Too dusty for my taste. I will say this though, I really am a Whedon fan, he ate up about 7 years of my life on UPN/WB.
  • As the article says with some key characters dead and the major mysteries resolved there are no plot lines to hook on.
    One could feel in the movie that the series ended prematurely - with the highly compressed plot material found in the movie and the comic one could have easily filled a 2nd season, not to mention "paths not taken". But I must say Joss Whedon did the right thing - he gave the series closure. We know how the big plots resolved, we mourn the loss of loved ones and yet there is a somewhat brigh

    • Re:Would been quite hard away (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Kenshin ( 43036 ) <kenshin@lunarworks . c a> on Friday October 06, 2006 @09:33PM (#16344243) Homepage
      I always wanted to know more about Shepherd Book. People were always saying "He's not a Shepherd", but no one ever said what he actually WAS.
    • Actually, there is still quite a bit story left in the universe; Joss said it himself. Even were there not, I'd still pay to watch two hours of TV show again, assuming they were new.

      hell, even were they not new actually.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by VENONA ( 902751 )
      I agree with CharonX on all points. To continue in the same vein, I doubt Fox will sell the rights to Firefly, unless the people who cancelled it are now gone. Risk/reward probably looks something like: They might make a hit of it, and make me look bad/minuscule upside to corporate bottom line. Hmm...set corporate butt-covering shields to eleven!

      Also, Whedon seems to have projects enough to keep him busy for another couple of years, and time has to be at least something of a factor. The buzz (and apparently
  • Don't go ruin it like Star Wars and The Matrix. Do something new and awesome.
    • How was Star Wars ruined? Those three movies were great!

      *is in denial of post-1997 Star Wars productions*

      Please, let my memory repression efforts work!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rk ( 6314 ) *

        *rk gestures in kimvette's general direction*

        "There are only three Star Wars movies... and there wasn't a Holiday special either." :-)

  • Somewhat misinterpreted (Score:5, Informative)

    by TooTrueTroubs ( 630665 ) on Friday October 06, 2006 @08:02PM (#16343689)
    In this post: http://whedonesque.com/comments/11513 [whedonesque.com] Joss Whedon explains that his comments don't mean 'no Serenity ever' - just 'no Serenity NOW'.

    When the two worlds align and something actually happens, whatever it is, you guys know I'll be on this site as soon as I'm allowed to be. And I'll be very very clear. There is no news. Not never, just now.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mstra ( 38238 )
      just 'no Serenity NOW'

      Lloyd: You know, you should tell your dad that 'serenity now' thing doesn't work. It just bottles up the anger, and eventually, you blow.
      George: What do you know? You were in the nut house.
      Lloyd: What do you think put me there?
      George: I heard they found a family in your freezer.
      Lloyd: Serenity now. Insanity later.

  • Whedon has said this before and will probably have to repeat it again to fans hoping for a sequel. I'm hoping for a sequel too, but I seriously doubt it's ever going to happen.

    Time for a new quality SF TV series, I'd say.
  • Josh was just setting to bed rumors that had been circling that there was a Serenity sequel IN THE WORKS.

  • No More Mrs. Reynolds.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DESADE ( 104626 ) <slashdot@nOsPAm.bobwardrop.com> on Friday October 06, 2006 @08:29PM (#16343895)
    I was seriously hoping for some kind of resurrection of the character played by Christina Hendricks in "Our Mrs. Reynolds" and "Trash." I'm sure some of you remember the salaciously hot redhead.

    It's a shame when shows like Firefly get axed when so much crap survives. But, I hate to admit it, I missed Firefly on TV and only got hip to it on DVD. What a shame.

    I think it's a tribute to Joss that he got the movie made at all. And anyone who saw the film knew it was the end.

  • No loss (Score:2, Insightful)

    by kentrel ( 526003 )
    It was pretty bland, generic sci fi anyway which was being carried solely by the Buffy fanboys, who are terrifying in their obsessiveness. They make Star Trek fans look like mere hobbyists.

    Though as banal as I found it, it still amazes me at what gets cancelled, and what doesn't. At least Firefly had a plot....

    LEX??? - how many bloody series of that have there been!? I've never met anyone who liked it. Did you? Please reply, and tell me why! Did I just not "get it"? Did I have to be on drugs or have been

    • Lexx was just strange, from the one episode I ever saw of it. Of course, that turned out to be the last episode, and it was 3am, and I was a bit drunk and a lot tired.

    • Bland and generic? Firefly had one of the best, most in-depth plots of any sci-fi show I've ever seen. It was far from a cookie-cutter reality. A Western in space? That's something unheard of on network television. Which, of course, was both its most unique achievement and its worst failure. I guess the typical people that watch Fox just didn't "get it."

      And for the record, I have never seen a single episode of any other show of Joss Whedon's creation. Nor do they really interest me enough to warrant

  • Serenity ain't ever coming back. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Pedrito ( 94783 ) on Friday October 06, 2006 @08:45PM (#16343977)
    Sad to say, but it really won't. I didn't watch it when it was running, but I watched it before the movie came out and really enjoyed it. The movie was pretty decent too.

    I think the problem with Serenity is that it's simply too sophisticated for your WWF fan types. The chinese expressions mixed in, six-gun slingers in space ships. It's just too much for a Nascar fan to cope with. I'm not saying the show is without its fans. I simply think that the average viewer can't quite get it, at least in the States, and that's too bad. It had a lot of originality and even though it had some rough edges, I think they would have really found their groove with another season.
    • Most shows take a season or two to find their groove. Look at X-Files, which was over the heads of pretty much everyone who would watch TV. It didn't really hit its stride until the 2nd season. Even ST:TNG didn't get big until after the 1st season finished.

      The thing that sucks about Firefly wasn't that it "could've been big," or that there "might have been something if given the time." What sucks is that the 1st season was really good, but FOX killed it for political reasons (internal politics). It'
    • It was a great show... I own it on DVD... but to say it is "too sophisticated" for the TV watching audience is a bit much. Serenity had almost no allegory or subtext, the stories were dead simple, and it really wasn't sophisticated at all. It was extremly well done and compelling, probably because it was so simple.

      Your average Nascar fan loves shows like Lost, Deadwood, the Sopranos, which are much more complicated than Serenity.

      The reason why the show failed, was because when people hear "cowboys in space"
    • How do you know what people who like Nascar ike and do not like? Saying "WWF" fans cannot enjoy Serenity is like saying that black people lack the mental capactity to enjoy fine entertainment or sitting in the front seats of busses. Believe it or not, people once thought that skin color determined brain power and now you are saying the same just because someone likes cars!

      People are far more complex than your simplistic black and white worldview would suggest. Furthermore cars are a haven for nerdery wit
      • Actually, no, saying that NASCAR fans cannot enjoy Serenity is nothing like saying something about black people. Enjoying Serenity is a taste; enjoying NASCAR is a taste. Confusing these categories with "racial," ethnic, sectarian, or sexual categories is simply wrong. Mind you, I'm sure that there are many brilliant NASCAR fans out there. (As for WWE, well, that's another story ...)
    • Sorry, what?

      Everything you listed makes it more accessable, IMO. Your average Nascar fan is a lot more likely to appreciate a good ol' gunfight than a lot of . I couldn't personally tell you why it failed, but I can tell you it wasn't because the show was too good for it's own good.

  • Damn and blast. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jpellino ( 202698 ) on Friday October 06, 2006 @08:45PM (#16343979)
    This series made my head snap around, which is more than I can say about 80% of the scifi in the past ten years.
    Geez, the guy could suck the vampire franchise dry (sorry), you'd think he could soldier on without the likes of Wash and make it more/better/shinier. Even with the resolutions of the movie and all. One of my favorite quotes about anything creative is from Joss: "Restrictions are great because they make you more imaginative. They make you rethink things, they make you not-do the obvious." I'd say he set lots of restrictions on his existing story line and had no where to go but massively creative.
    These characters were as salty / grounded / lofty / eye-twinkling / inventive as my favorite Heinlein characters. Even the trademark behaviors were just tweaked enough and were gently dashed often enough to keep you thinking "what's next?"

    To quote Wash, this series told the rest of the scifi world "Here's something you can't do..."

    We live in a world "Head of the Class" stays on the air for five seasons. Ya'd think they could keep this stuff rolling for more than one.

  • Quit while you're ahead... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Aragorn DeLunar ( 311860 ) on Friday October 06, 2006 @09:10PM (#16344137)
    and always leave them wanting more.

    The alternative being: milk it to death and leave them cursing the name "Lucas."

  • It's fucking heartbreaking (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Maximilio ( 969075 ) on Friday October 06, 2006 @11:06PM (#16344785) Homepage Journal
    I was at DragonCon in Atlanta a few weeks ago. And let me tell you, if you weren't there (I have this suspicion that many /.'ers probably were) -- the lines to see Wash and River (or Alan Tudyk and Summer Glau) were so long that people queued up three and four hours in advance. And stood there for even longer waiting to get to the head of the line, just to meet them and get their autographs.

    They were competing with Star Wars cast, Star Trek cast, BSG cast and Stargate, and who knows who else, and every single one of those franchises had seen more airtime and more hours filmed than the entire Firefly universe, but those two were the most popular people by an outrageous margin. I would say an entire order of magnitutde.

    Now consider how financially successful Star Treks and Star Warses have been and how hard to you have to slap FOX executives up one side and down the other for intentionally strangling this wonderful series so cruelly that the creator cannot even rationally consider attempting to bring it back to life?

    • I'm not totally sure there is a core fanbase as dedicated to Serenity as Star Wars or Star Trek.

      I was at a Serenity only convention last December, which was pretty cool as pretty much the whole cast was there (only Zoe missing) and even Josh showed up briefly (even a few guest apperances like the girl who played Ms. Reyonlds). The entire two or three days was spent on panels about Serenity, with some of the creative folk (like the graphics designer, very awesome talk) and many talks with different mixtures
  • "Nobody ever got poor underestimating the taste of the American public..."

    Face it my darlings... the lot of you for the most part belong somewhere between 1 and 3 sigma out from the average intelligence and taste of the American public, and though that means there are millions of you, in the great scheme of things, you are VASTLY outnumbered by the unwashed and unthinking masses.

    Not bad (unless you're concerned about about folks not teaching evolution or electing idiots for public office), but it's ki

  • Bah! (Score:2)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 )
    What's the point in creating characters everyone knows and loves if you're not going to do anything with 'em? Well... not me I mean. I've never seen it and from the looks of things it's like getting a taste of sweet, sweet crack and then having your dealer go missing. So I refuse! Therefore I shall smugly cross my arms and talk about how B5 was superior and also lasted 5 years, content in my ignorance! Because the alternative sounds like it'd be worse. Hah! Put that in your crack pipe and smoke it!
  • Wake me when Serenity: Special Edition comes out. I can't wait to see Wash shoot a giant spike at the Reavers first.

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