Welcome to the week ending installment of The Audio Edition
Today, Doug and I discuss the new films opening this weekend like Walace and Gromit, In Her Shoes, Waiting and Two For The Money. We take some time to talk about Serenity releasing the first 9 minutes online, and if this will become a trend for film marketing in the future. China making their own new DVD format, George Lucas not relaesing the ORIGINAL Star Wars trilogy on DVD and a few things more.
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SHOW NOTES: Running Time: 27:05 File Size: 6.2 megs
– Original Trilogy
– New DVD format from China
– Luis Guzman Loses It On The Set Of Waiting
i never watched the show firefly, and I was a huge fan of serenity.
also, i was not a fan of the wallace and grommit movie.
It’s true that Whedon had a hand in what went wrong in ‘Alien Ressurection’. He does not admit his wrongdoing, putting the blame on Jean Pierre Jenet (the director) but in a recent interview while promoting Serinity and the update on Wonder Woman, he cops to the fact he is the person who put the ‘humor’ in Alien Resurrection. I always felt it was the one liners in the fouth Alien picture that hurt the film far more than Jenet’s direction.
I wasn’t much of a Whedon fan myself until the Buffy spinoff of ‘Angel’ took off. But I didn’t see that many episodes of ‘Firefly’- I caught up with a few eps on the Sci Fi channel recently- but I thought ‘Serinity’ was done fairly nicely. As to the film not doing well because lack of star power, I’m not so sure I buy that. I mentioned “Riddick” earlier in this thread. Before “Riddick” was, of course, “Pitch Black”- and at the time “Pitch Black”‘s lead Vin Diesel wasn’t as widely known as he his now. Also indie films like “28 Days Later” and “Open Water” didn’t have big names, but they did well.
I’ll put it this way: I’ll admit on opening day I saw ‘Flightplan’ before I saw ‘Serinity’. There were lots of TV spots for the Jodie Foster movie. I hardly saw one for ‘Serinity’. I also think the comparisons to ‘Star Wars’ might be a factor. This could bring expectations higher, and those expectations could have been lowered. Even “The Matrix” had been hailed as this generation’s ‘Star Wars’. (What was the next ‘Star Wars’ for people, BTW, was the ‘Lord Of The Rings’ trilogy) but what it comes down to is the studio really didn’t market it well.
Now, I’m sure John will cover this in the next day or so regarding the drop in ‘Serinity”‘s box office, but I’ll say it here: if the film does well on DVD, I could see another film being discussed at least for DVD sake. The series already had a cult following and the show on DVD did well in sales. No reason to see why the film could not do the same.
Why are people so suprised by Serenity’s lack of box office draw? There’s no stars in it, it’s based on an extremely short lived tv show, and doesn’t really give any indication to those unfamiliar with Firefly that it was based on a tv show.
I have never watched the show, saw Serenity, and was not impressed. It got the job done as a sci-fi movie, but definitely didn’t work as a stand alone film from the viewpoint of someone who hasn’t watched Firefly.
I thought the trailer was lame and I wouldn’t have seen the film if the show wasn’t so highly recommended. For me it was as middle of the road as Whedon’s contribution to the Alien series. In fact, the crew dynamics seemed almost exactly the same.
I guess it’s understandable when a small, tightly knit group of die-hard fans are so delusional that they think a blip on the map like Serenity will break the box office based on a fair amount of dvd sales and an internet petition. I guess in the end it was all preaching to the already converted.
Update on Serinity: As of late today, WTF is it doing at the bottom of the box office pile? Do see the film, people. Man, it almost feels like deja vu, no one supports the sries (and messes up the sequence order) the film is made, and…no one goes to see it and the studio under-supports it.
Hey Guys…
As far as “The Insider” goes… yes… it was only 6 years ago as opposed to 7. However… as I mentioned in a previous Audio Edition… I didn’t think Pacino was very good in it.
Russell Crowe acted circles around him in that… and it was Crowe who got a nomination for Best Actor for the film and not Pacino.
So I haven’t forgotten about The Insider… I just don’t give Pacino any credit for it.
Which is hard for me to say… because I love Pacino.
the Insider was nominated for best picture. to just forget about it, even if you’re not a huge fan, is a big mistake.
Comments:
1) Star Wars. Thanks for giving that link. I did the petition thing, although to be honest I don’t think it’ll make a dent. There have been other on-line petitions for various things regarding films to DVD and sequels, and so on. Now, that said, I was disappointed that Lucas didn’t give “the original scenes” up as deleted scenes, or have the original trilogy along with the ‘new improved’ version.
As for me and others giving an arm, leg and my wallet to Lucas, I’m not too thrilled on that. I rerember the VHS versions, where you’d shell out money not just for widescreen versions, but also everytime they’d do some upgrade with the audio mix.
I mention widescreen- I found it quite odd that after all those new FX for the films, they’d just get lopped off due to pan and scan :) Oh well, I hope Lucasfilm does put out the original films on DVD. Excellent excuse for a double dip.
Speaking of double dipping- I was more than happy to get the SE of David Cronenberg’s “The Fly” this week. True, Fox also put out the crapfest sequel in a SE- and in better looking packaging, ’cause they know it’s a shitty sequel, and it might get some unsuspecting consumer to get it who doesn’t know any better.
2) Al Pacino “hasn’t had a good film in the last seven years”. “The Insider” was in 1999, wasn’t it?
3) About studios putting up the first seven to ten minutes of a film online. There have been recent films where studios will put up two to five minutes of a scene from a film online. This didn’t help “Blade: Trinity” any. BTW, I hated Ryan Renyolds in that film. Strangely, I thought he was near brilliant in the “Amityville Horror” remake, which was pretty decent overall. As far as trailers go, I’d like to see more studios putting in alternate scenes or alternate takes so they can be spoiler free, or have something like say, “Terminator 2’s The Assembly Line” teaser.
By the way, it’s funny, because you can make an arguement that getting a “taste” for Serinity might be good. It might. I loved “Flightplan”- but I one hundred percent guarantee that if the first few minutes of that film were put online, somebody would think it’s a David Lynch film or something. The first five minutes of ‘Flightplan’ , not counting flashy credits- confused me. When the film got going, I liked it more and more.
I think Serinity works because not everyone has seen the short lived series it was based on, and due to not having ‘big names’, the action and suspense factor is upped a few notches. I liked last years “Chronicles Of Riddick”, but you sort of knew Vin Diesel would hardly get a scratch on him, know what I mean?
4) China rules.
John I am glad you liked Serenity and do feel it is a much more engaging film than any of the SW prequels. Ask yourself this – if you had to sit down right now and watch any of the SW prequels or Serenity – which would you pick? I know which one I would pick and it ain’t any of the SW prequels!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After playing the King Kong demo to day whay do u think Jack Black playing Carl Denham and about what u said about sound tracks last week the King Kong one sounds great
Why cant u make the MBAE longer like 30 min
Luiz Guzman… I have always liked him, very funny, but what he did, was just stupid, its one line. I mean he was not the director, he did not write the screenplay. You cant just do things how you want, when you sign for a movie, and you are NOT the director, you do what the director wants done, I mean he even offered Guzman to do his take and the regular one. I dont know, personally I just think that Guzman needs to chill out and just do what he’s being paid for.