Serenity Then?

Many moons ago this blog sarcastically assessed the ferocious buzz among the self-congratulatory geekoids who'd revived (they thought) the dead TV show Firefly because so many of them bought the show's DVDs. It was being broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel and it was being adapted into a movie (link no. 12), which lent credence to the thinking, popularized in web chatrooms, that corporations care what consumers think. If they did, they won't now, because despite good msm reviews and lots of blogttention, Serenity came in second this weekend — after Flightplan, last weekend's top movie — and made only about $10 million. See the full report here. It could be a self-fulfilling prophecy that a movie with no big stars, based on a short-lived, mis-marketed TV show, can't even sell more tickets than The Dukes of Hazzard. But, again, to hear bloggers tell it, Joss Whedon's space-western is a monumental triumph: "We need more movies like this," raves WBTG. (With these kinds of receipts, studio execs almost certainly disagree.) This h4ck3r — not to be confused with sk8er — also liked the movie, and, as a fan, expected some props for supporting it. Detailed breakdown of the flick here, though this postmortem just makes it even more difficult not to just say, "look, guys, it doesn't matter how well good you think the script is — you're still a bunch of geekoids."

Posted by Philip Ewing at October 3, 2005 10:22 AM

Category: Moving Pictures