For those of you out there who have seen Serenity and liked it there is bad news, no Serenity 2. Our friends over at slashfilm.com give us this:
Joss Whedon fanboys can finally give up all hope, the writer/director has finally confirmed what I’ve said all along: There will never be a Serenity sequel. Serenity was a 2005 science fiction western film set in the universe of the cancelled Fox television series Firefly. Including it’s home video release, Serenity has still yet to come close to earning back it’s $39 million budget. “There’s no sequel, no secret project regarding Serenity or somesuch and I’m not even sure how anyone thought there was talk there,” wrote Whedon. “So let’s put that to bed and smother it with a pillow.”
Harsh words, and yet…good dialouge. To be fair this must have been a massive disappointment to Whedon. This movie got outstanding reviews, people were calling it the next Star Wars franchise and for it to not even make back it’s 36 million dollar budget must have made all the people who made it want to go to bed and never wake up. It’s a shame that the sequel won’t be made, but it’s understandable, no one wants to make a movie when the first one didn’t even break even.
After reading all the good reviews on Serenity at rottentomatoes.com I’ll be renting it soon, hopefully my dollars will go towards making it less of a lemon.
**SPOLIER**
Well, trying to avoid spoiler territory here, but Im sure theres a very good reason Mr. Tudyk answered your question that way, what did you want him to say?, his character is dead.
Nord
wtf? I loved Serenity and Firefly. Damn them.
I notice that these quotes don’t have enough context for us to tell if Whedon really is dissapointed.
Around the middle of the climax of Serenity I came to the realization that Whedon seemed to be done. The ending, the closing shots, all of it seemed like a fond farewell, a goodbye done right unlike some other properties of his.
I loved Firefly and Serenity. But I’ve never seen anything that suggested to me that Whedon HIMSELF wants more to do with the universe. Maybe he’s done, and that’s all there is to it. I for one would rather writers and directors hang up their franchises and leave them be unless they have a great idea that they can do justice to.
Man this really sucks. I just finaly got to see Serenity not too long ago and I loved it. Wish I saw it sooner, but just been so many movies I’m having to catch up on over the past year or so. It has just about everthing I wanted it to be and infact is now one of my top 10 fav films. It reminded me alot of Cowboy Bebop, which I’m a huge fan of.
If this is true then it just really sucks we wont see anymore of this series. I hope maybe something can happen to change this in the near future. Some kind of cult fan uprising maybe. I know one thing, I’m finaly gonna go buy the damn DVD like I’ve been meaning to.
Long live Firefly/Serenity!!! :D
I loved the TV Series and so I was excited to see the movie. Movie was good, but I think the TV series was better in many ways. It does not suprise me to hear that Whedon is not doing a sequel because the film felt rushed to me. Almost as if he was trying to cram what he didn’t get to finish in the series into the 2 hour film.
I bought the TV series boxed set, but I rented to movie and that was pretty much all I needed to see of it. Good, but not great.
The prequel comment is interesting though. I just don’t know where he’d take that honestly unless you go way back to the war.
I feel like I’m over commenting here now, but for the post about the Theatre in IL, I was going to tell you the following:
I don’t think he was wrong to close the theatre. He can’t keep it open in the long run and not profit. Eventually, the theatre will not have enough money to stay long term. I think the real jerks are the people who expect him to keep it open even if he will lose money. They have a feeling of entitlement that they don’t deserve.
By the way, I am having trouble commenting in the post about the closed theatre in IL. Maybe that is why you aren’t receiving comments.
I wasn’t trying to criticize you. I just laughed a little to myself when I saw you had said that since you were the one to post about the sequel to Bloodrayne. You even said you were looking forward to the “sexy people biting each other with a cowboy hat tossed in for fun.”
I still can’t tell if you were kidding when you said that, because Boll releasing anything shouldn’t be a happy occasion. Are you one of those people that can find good in anything?
On the offtopic question of Boll, how is he still getting money to pay for these movies? I thought they closed the loophole.
(I apologize if my spelling was off above.)
You got me. I should re edit the post to say
“no one in their right mind wants to make a movie when the first one didn’t even break even”.
“no one wants to make a movie when the first one didn’t even break even”
*cough*bloodrayne*cough*
Very good movie, any sci-fi fan should rent it. I am surprised it didn’t make back it’s cost. Maybe someone should just write Serenity novels…
I wanted to like it (as I always enjoy being a fanboy), but it didn’t work for me. The editing was very frantic, almost desperate. It also seemed to consider itself as having a gravitas that I didn’t think it earned. It probably deserved better than it got, though.
it was a fun movie :)
So it sounds like, once again, we are talking about a very loud minority here.
It’s a shame we’ll never get to see Whedon and co develop the Firefly world the way he developed Buffy and Angel, but these things happen, I suppose.
It just goes to show, just because you’re talented, have something interesting to offer and have been responsible for a previously successful, innovative television show, that doesn’t give you the right to be treated with any respect whatsoever by a TV network. Christ, that must be depressing.
By the way – to anyone who’s thinking of seeing Serenity – I highly recommend watching Firefly first. It’s only about thirteen episodes and you can pick the box sets up pretty cheap. I think one of the failures of the film is that it’s much less effective if you aren’t already familiar with the world.
The ads in Australia were atrocious. They turned people off watching the movie. I nearly didn’t watch it and I’m a big Firefly fan.
I dragged my friends along, all but one had never even heard of the show, and they all loved it, even the passive-aggressive a-hole who hates everything I like.
No suprised here, I never once thought there would be a seqel to Serenity. Theres not a big enough fanbase for it. I’m also glad in way that there won’t be a sequel because it ended while it was still popualr, it didn’t drag out until it’s death.
Dissapointed.
It makes sense from a business standpoint but when you go to any sci-fi convention and see the amount of enthusiasm for Serenity/Firefly it is strange to think that this universe was not handled better.
I never watched Buffy but when Firefly was released on DVD I became hooked.Firefly followed a crew of underdogs fans grew to love and root for even after cancelation.People who have not watched the series or the movie should check both out.
I had never heard of Firefly, when word-of-mouth got me into the theater to see Serinity. I had no idea what to expect. The movie turned out to be better (by far) than Phantom Menace (Jar Jar totoally ruined it for me), Attack of the Clones, or Revenge of the Sith.
I’m truly dissapointed that there will be no sequel.
Don’t both renting it. “Serenity” was a boring movie. I have a feeling that the majority of people who enjoyed the film were already Joss Whedon fans. I’m sorry, but Joss Whedon’s following doesn’t even equal 1% of George Lucas’ following. There was no way “Serenity” was ever close to becoming “the next Star Wars franchise”.
Good think Joss isn’t making a “Serenity” sequel.
Maybe it’s me, but I just didn’t think the movie was ‘all that.’ And I became a pretty big Buffy fan because of my wife. Someone tell me what I am missing here.
I can’t say I’m surprised about this news. “Serenity” was easily one of my fave films of 2005 (yes, I’ll admit I’m slightly biased) but Joss had been hinting from the beginning that he was done with this verse. Even if it had made a profit, I would have been surprised to see a sequel any time soon. And Nord made a great recommendation. “Done the Impossible” is a great documentary on the entire “Serenity”, “Firefly” and Browncoats issue.
Rent it Sharon! Easily better than ROTS last year.
A friend of mine went to see “Spamalot” on Broadway and met Alan Tudyk at the stage door. She told him she was a huge “Firefly” fan and asked if there would be anything beyond “Serenity.” He replied “Can you say prequel?”
I don’t want to suggest Joss is a liar, but maybe he’s being a little bit coy when he says there won’t be a “Serenity” “sequel.”
The mishandling of this piece of art hurts me to no end.
The way FOX sliced and diced the pilot to the original TV show, then preempted it for weeks on end because of Baseball playoffs, it should not have been a surprise to anyone that it didn’t find an audience.
Someone at Universal pictures agreed and went to great lengths to secure the rights (including signing off that regardless of its success, it would not be allowed on TV, in any incarnation, for at least 10 years)
Gave it a big budget…..then complete fucked it in the ass again! This movie was originally slated for a May release, it was to usher in the summer blockbusters and many people were chopping at the bit for a “Summer” movie, it would have done 20 million opening weekend EASY..and of course tappered off as more summer move fare arrived, but a big opening weekend would have secured at least a break even (combined with eventual DVD sales)
But they suddenly moved it to a fall release where, unless you are a moron, you know its a dumping ground for crap, that space between Summer movie and Oscar contender, late August to early October, no one goes to the movies during that time. But thats where they decided to release it, and yet again doom it to failure before it even got a chance.
Thank god Joss finally took the old boy out back and blew its head off, I couldnt stand to watch it suffer any more. The worst past was it was good, not fan boy good, but really good, it worked on every level a movie should work, but no one gave it a chance.
If anyone is interested in seeing the way it all played out there is a really good documentary Called “Done the Impossible” really good doc on the subject.
Nord