Serenity on IMDB and American Box Office performance.

Hugh Hefner

Well good news for all, Serenity has reached #149 on IMDB's Top 250 films list!

It has 8.7/10 whereas on the list it is shown to have only 8.0/10. I don't know why. It's not just Serenity either. I checked The Godfather (9.0/10) which is #1 and it actually has a score of 9.1/10. Hmmmm.... I'm sure one of you knows.

In other good news, on Amazon.com the Firefly boxset has, over the last few weeks, gone from #20 on the Top Sellers list, to #7 and now is at #3! Huzah!

However, it's not all strawberries and cream. Serenity, released September 30th in the U.S., hasn't reached the #1 slot with regards to Box Office performance.
However, as a Browncoat on the Official site put it, "Also to be taken into account is that four out of the top five movies are in more theaters than Serenity. Flightplan (15 mil) is playing in 3424 theaters and Serenity (10 mil) is in 2188, Corpse Bride (9.75 mil) is in 3204 and even Into the Blue (7 mil) is in 2789. Between those Serenity is making more per theater given weekend estimates."

So, all in all the film is doing pretty gorram well, especially since it's a Sci.-Fi., T.V.-to-film adaptation.

Now we, as Eurofans, have to do our part in making this film a Big Damn Profit by bringing friends, family, firends' familes, family's friends, pets, Norwegian exchange students, postmen, Blue-Hand men. Sign to the deaf, describe to the blind, explain to the blondes!

Good sailing.

Daelus

I was disappointed to hear it's not doing so well in the US. A couple of million under the expected intake. Hopefully it'll be more of a sleeper hit.

But we can rebuild it! We have the technology!
Let's all tell everyone we know to go see it. Bring everyone you can! I have a couple of people going with me to a preview on Thursday, and also on opening day. Hoping to bring another few people on the Saturday, too.
Let's smash this out of the park.

But remember, don't rest it all on opening weekend. Universal want a hit that has legs. A huge dropoff after the first weekend isn't a good sign.

Roddy23

eh think i might have been under a rcok or something, but what is Serenity??
Looking at bbc, and the imdb and its done very well.
Was thinking about going to see this tonight,would that be recommended, even to someone who doesn't really know the plot??

Stark

Interestingly enough, the highest rating for Serenity is from "Females aged 30-44", take that stereotypes

slovessmg

Everyone should see this movie, you don't have to know anything about it to enjoy it, trust me. It's out in Ireland this Thursday.

The IMDB has a system of ranking it's top 250 movies. It's quite complicated to stop people changing a film's rank. A lot of the voting procedure is secret but they do say this:

The formula for calculating the Top Rated 250 Titles gives a true Bayesian estimate:

weighted rank (WR) = (v ÷ (v+m)) × R + (m ÷ (v+m)) × C
where: R = average for the movie (mean) = (Rating) v = number of votes for the movie = (votes) m = minimum votes required to be listed in the Top 250 (currently 1250) C = the mean vote across the whole report (currently 6.8)
for the Top 250, only votes from regular voters are considered.

So to raise Serenity's rank, get more people to vote and vote for more movies yourself, but be sure to give each movie a fair rating or their system may exclude you for trying to fix the chart.

Roddy23

Everyone should see this movie, you don't have to know anything about it to enjoy it, trust me.

Trust ye? alright but if i dont like it ill be back on here 2moro.
And if i do, ill be back to say cheers....

Roddy23

my bad,
read the cinema listings wrong.
Till next wkend so....

Hugh Hefner

It is an excellent film. I'm not just saying that from a fan's point of view, I actually think it's a wonderful film in it's own right. Definately go see it.

If you haven't seen the T.V. show it's alright to still go and see Serenity. If you feel like it, I suggest you ask everyone you know if they have a Firefly boxset, or know someone who has one, and if you could get a lend of it, so that you can watch all the episodes before you see it this weekend. And you will see it this weekend! I'm watching you, bub.

slovessmg wrote:

for the Top 250, only votes from regular voters are considered.

Oh, okay. That s'plains it.

koneko

Don't read the IMDB boards. Seriously. Don't.

If you do, put someone called SereneFanatique on your ignore list right away. He's pure uncut troll and people keep replying to him, feeding into his troll appetite. His sole intent seems to be to spend all of his time on the board being a total jackass to the "geeks" (as he calls them) and browncoats, letting everyone know how idiotic they are for enjoying the film and hoping it does well. Irony? Yes, but seriously just put him on your ignore list.

In other news I've got a few more people hooked, who are all going to see the film on thursday.

Pigman II

Hugh Hefner wrote:

However, it's not all strawberries and cream. Serenity, released September 30th in the U.S., hasn't reached the #1 slot with regards to Box Office performance.

I wouldn't worry about it!

That's just unfortunate timing. I've watched the whole series of Firefly and definetly want to see Serenity but at the same time I still want to see Flightplan and esp. Corpse Bride more. It just indicates to me that Serenity will have strong 2nd and 3rd weeks at the boxoffice

Basq

koneko wrote:

Don't read the IMDB boards. Seriously. Don't.

Great advice!

Read around on it on Friday night and... well, i wasn't happy! :mad:

Pigman II

BTW , you might want to take a screengrab of Serenity at #149 before it disappears.

A lot of films with cult fanbases make into the top 250 on the opening weekend and then just as quickly drop out when all the multiplex zombies get back to their laptops. Unfortunate but true.

Hugh Hefner

Well it has moved higher still and is now at #136. Perhaps there's hope. Doubtful though (so I did take a screen shot ).

Vokes

Joss Whedon reckons it needs to make $50mil in the US or €80mil worldwide for there to be a follow up in the cinema or on tv.

Linky

iguana

Is that just box office or those it include dvd sales when Serenity comes out on dvd?

Not to be contraversial but I honestly wouldn't recommend the movie to someone who hadn't seen the series. The movie deals with so much it doesn't have much chance to introduce and develop the characters to a new audience. And you have to really care about the characters to get the full impact.

sutty

Well I have gotten a good few people onto. I was also having a drunken chat about it with a girl from work. So she seen it on Sci-Fi over the weekend and now wants to see the movie.
I'm gonna post up a post about people going to see it saturday ngiht and then drinks. Hope some people are interested

Daelus

iguana wrote:

Not to be contraversial but I honestly wouldn't recommend the movie to someone who hadn't seen the series. The movie deals with so much it doesn't have much chance to introduce and develop the characters to a new audience. And you have to really care about the characters to get the full impact.

I don't think that'll really matter. The critics seem to love it. And most of them haven't seen the series. I hear a lot of newbies are going to see it and loving it, too.

NineMoons

I have seen Serenity and LOVED it and have introduced two or three people to Firefly who will be going to see the movie and I'm bringing my dad who has only seen the pilot so I've done my part.
I also think that the movie is a richer experience for fans (which is why my Beloved has spent the past month being introduced to the series) but will still play very well for non-fans. There will inevitably be stuff that is lost on the non-fan - I read one review where Inara was simply called Mal's ex-girlfriend, the whole interplanetary geisha thing having been lost completely in the tranistion! - but it still works. Everyone gets funny lines, the action is breathtaking and the horror is, well, horrific.
Having said all that, I don't think it's going to attract the type of people who avoid anything remotely genre. That's why I think that the posters that are kind of vague and non-spaceshippy are a good thing - unsuspecting punters will be lured in and pleasantly surprised! There's a new one cameraphoned up on Whedonesque, which basically has River and a knife and <ahem> her attributes on display. It's intriguing.

iguana

Daelus wrote:

I don't think that'll really matter. The critics seem to love it. And most of them haven't seen the series. I hear a lot of newbies are going to see it and loving it, too.

In the first review I read the reviewer said he felt very left out at times, he said he liked the movie but felt like he just wasn't getting it all. After seeing it I could definetely understand where he was coming from.

Just been on imdb's home page. It has a 'please meet' link to Summer Glau with a link to the Serenity details.

Hobbes

Erm, Serenity was #2 box office reciepts. How is that a failure?

Hugh Hefner

Oh it's certainly not, but it could still be doing better. Besides, it may be #2 but it's still earning under the projected estimates (be they from normal film situations, which as we all know the Serenity release is not). Luckily Joss says that Universal have been very understanding with the release of this film and realise that this may be one of the slow, but big, earners.

In many ways the second weekend is going to be the clincher for Serenity. If the attendance drop-off rate between weekend 1 and weekend 2 (usually around 40%) is kept to a minimum (I'm hoping for 10%-20%) then we'll certainly have a good chance at a sequel.

Baz_

iguana wrote:

The movie deals with so much it doesn't have much chance to introduce and develop the characters to a new audience. And you have to really care about the characters to get the full impact.

Not that you're not entitled to your opinions iguana, but the reaction from my girlfriend, who had never even heard of firefly, would lead me to the conclusion you are wrong.

She really liked at (insofar as a non-scifi fan can really like a scifi movie) and after a little probing she told me that the movie was very solid, good characters strong and complete story. She goes to the cinema a lot, so she knows what she's talking about.

In short: Feel free to recommend this movie with a money back guarantee. Its a banker.

Sidane

Saw it this evening and loved it. I watched the series last month but the friend I went with knew nothing about the film, hadn't even seen a trailer, and has no interest in sci-fi.

He thought it was "ok to poor" which is fair enough, was interesting to hear the opinion of someone watching it from a completely different perspective to me.

Hopefully the film will be a long slow burner and do well. It really deserves to do well because it's so good. Really well made sci-fi with this quality of character depth, good dialogue and wit is rare. If films like Serenity sink off the radar with little impact it'll just encourage studios to churn out more tripe like Fantastic Four and <insert name of crummy sci-fi/comic book flick of choice>

Basq

Massive drop at the US Box Office this week:

JoBlo wrote:

Not so surprisingly, the biggest drop in the top 10 came courtesy of Joss Whedon's SERENITY which despite massive fan backing, simply didn't have the wider appeal to challenge the more commercial flicks being released at this time.

1. Wallace & Gromit
2. Flightplan
3. In Her Shoes
4. Two For the Money
5. The Gospel
6. Corpse Bride
7. Waiting...
8. A History of Violence
9. Serenity
10. Into the Blue

Courtesy of JoBlo.com here!

TCamen

Massive drop at the US Box Office this week:

Over 50% of Week 1 total.

I mentioned it in another thread, but I really think the trailers and TV spots are awful. I hadn't seen them until recently (I saw the film in August @ Cineworld preview) but they're really poor. Lots of contextless one-liners that mean nothing without more explanation. I can see why non-fans are staying away. I just thought the whole marketing campaign smacked of being very insular to the fanbase. I guess it's one strategy, but I think they could've tried harder to explain more of the basic premise in the trailers.

iguana

Baz_ wrote:

Not that you're not entitled to your opinions iguana, but the reaction from my girlfriend, who had never even heard of firefly, would lead me to the conclusion you are wrong.

She really liked at (insofar as a non-scifi fan can really like a scifi movie) and after a little probing she told me that the movie was very solid, good characters strong and complete story. She goes to the cinema a lot, so she knows what she's talking about.

I said full impact, not any impact.

The two characters who die are barely in the movie. Book is an incredibly complex character and Wash....how can I even begin to describe him? I can't, you have to get to love him for yourself.

Without seeing the series you can't really get these characters so there is no way that their deaths would effect you as much. And the impact his death has on Zoe isn't so obvious if you don't know them. As Wash himself says a lot of people don't really get their relationship at first. And the movie just doesn't have the scope to show any of those characters in any real detail.

I do think it is a good movie if you haven't seen the series, but it is only a fraction of what it is if you have.

As for the ratings I saw it again tonight in Wood Green Cineworld, London. I was very disappointed by the turn out. Only about 30-50 people. Then again I spoke to several people this week who want to see the movie but are waiting to see the series first.

lazygit

Dragged my girlfriend to see it last night, she hate's sci-fi, buffy, angel... everything thats not a love story ;p.. BUT she came out grinning like a fool after Serenity she loved it and now plans on watching the Firefly weekend i recorded on Sky+ :-)

Almarsáre

So far I've taken six people to see it who have never seen the show. Of the six, five of the loved it and one of them liked it.

Hugh Hefner

On Saturday I took 3 friends (all guys who are into the general genre of fantasy/sci-fi/etc.). None had seen Firefly, knew much about it, knew much about the film and perhaps hadn't even seen the trailer (though maybe that was a good thing).They all loved it.

I gave one of them my Firefly DVDs today (I made sure to keep the Kaylee and Simon signed cardboard sleeve) so hopefully he'll watch a few episodes tonight and I'll have something to talk about in school tomorrow.

In fact, I'm going to call him soon to "remind" him to watch some of Firefly this gorram night!


I've also been considering buying a second boxset for lending to people, to get them into Firefly/Serenity. I think I'll end up buying another.

I heard a great story about a college student who had a boxset for lending, lent it to some other students, and some more, and now it's on like it's 17th generation of converts. How cool is that!?

Daelus

Hugh Hefner wrote:

I've also been considering buying a second boxset for lending to people, to get them into Firefly/Serenity. I think I'll end up buying another.

I heard a great story about a college student who had a boxset for lending, lent it to some other students, and some more, and now it's on like it's 17th generation of converts. How cool is that!?

Good idea. I have a second boxset, and I lent it out a couple of months ago to a friend. Still haven't got it back. Seems to be making the rounds.

Fence

TCamen wrote:

Over 50% of Week 1 total.

This is good for a sci-fi film. Only one did better, I think, was Star Wars which had a 40% drop. Course it also started out with more...

But I've heard that there was a slight upswing on Sunday, so maybe the word-of-mouth is getting out there.