h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hiya folks - I thought you might find this good news. Since 'twas the DVD sales of "Firefly" that enabled "Serenity" to get made then good DVD sales for "Serenity" may pave the way for the return of its crew. No, I'm holding my breath either but you never know - hope springs eternal

http://www.whedon.info/article.php3?id_article=13184

Hi all!

Whedon's keeping his options open... Back to TV?

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=17800

Hope Springs eternal

It sure does, Doc!

From Newsarama.com - By Matt Fabb - 2006-02-19
Serenity breaks even and becomes profitable on DVD
Firefly







There was quite a bit of discussion a while back whether the movie Serenity would make any money for Universal. Well, it seems now on DVD that the movie has moved out of the red and is now making money for Universal. It hasn’t exactly made a huge amount of money and there’s still some way to go for a sequel to happen, but at least the movie is no longer climbing out of the red.

Here’s some figures and number crunching for anyone who’s interested:

Serenity costs $39 million to make ($1 million under it’s $40 million budget) and while the advertising budget was never made public, people have estimated around $10 million. So overall the movie costs around $49 million for Universal to make. Now Serenity made a disappointing $25 million domestically and $13 million internationally for a total of $38 million at the box office. Now following the 55% rule, where studios get around 55% of the total of the box office, Universal only made $21 million from the box office.

Now there’s been no official sales figures for Serenity since it’s been released on DVD, only where it’s ranked on the sales charts. However, there have been sales announcements for other DVD’s above and bellow Serenity and people have managed to do some number crunching and worked out that Serenity sold from 1.104 to 1.605 million copies in the first week of release! Some more number crunching was done to figure out Serenity sold around 825 thousand copies for January 2006. So by now it’s definitely over 2 million (possibly high as 2.5 million). Now studios generally take around $12 dollars profit per DVD, with the remaining split between the retailer and distributer. So that’s $24 million from the DVD sales, already more than the studio made from the box office. Meanwhile VideoBusiness.com tracked Serenity in bringing in over $9 million in DVD rentals. It has since fallen off the chart, but at the rate of it’s decline it’s safe to estimate that it manage to make $10 million before dropping too far.

Now the tv rights for Serenity were sold to NBC for a 3 movie package deal for $26 million. Now Serenity was hardly the top movie in the deal, so let’s low ball it and say Serenity only gets $5 million out of that deal.

So that’s $21 million from the box office, $24 million from DVD sales, $10 million from rentals, and around $5 million from tv rights for a total of $60 million. With Serenity costing $49 million to make and advertise it’s estimated that Universal has made $11 million off of the movie. Not nearly enough for Universal to invest in another movie, but there’s still profit to be made. The DVD has yet been released internationally and if the domestic sales are any indication, the DVD will make more money than the theatre box office. Especially since Universal International has included a lot of cool extras in the various international editions, the Australian version has a second disk of extras and comes in a cool metal tin, plus one retailer is offering free posters with the movie, another retailer offering Serenity mouse-mats and all sorts of other cool stuff. Meanwhile the DVD has sold well enough for the talked about Special Edition to be made available. The extras have already been produced for the Australian edition and ready to go, the only extra thing that Joss Whedon wants to do is add full cast audio commentary.

Meanwhile those calculations didn’t include anything from licensing which has been doing really well. The comic book, movie novelization, books, official t-shirts, RPG have all sold better than expected and more of all these items are on it’s way. There’s more money to be made out of this franchise yet and a sequel or possibily even a direct-to-DVD sequel might still yet happen.

There are a few possible 'flaws' in the calculations. The cost of marketing and distribution within the domestic market has not been made public. The estimate here is $10 million, which is possible, but that is quite low. As an example, $30 million dollars was spent on 'The Grudge' domestically and that film only had a production budget of $10 million.

The oversees box office is an odd one. It is sometimes said that the studio cannot expect to receive more than 15% of this back in gross revenue. If there is any truth in this, Universal would only have received $2 million against the $13 million gross. There is no doubt that Hollywood studios are generally only really interested in the domestic box office and this might be the reason why.

As to the DVD sales, etc, these are a guess. It might be quite accurate, but such information is almost impossible to obtain. The film will probably do well on DVD but there is a suggestion that it has not yet done as well as had been hoped in America. There has been some criticism of the artwork for the R1 sleeve and also the lack of advertising and promotion given to the DVD release.

There is no doubt that the film will eventually break even, but as to a sequel, I guess we'll have to wait and see. Joss Whedon posted a message at WHEDONesque on 13 February 2006 in which he wrote, "Serenity sequel! My phone is silent and withdrawn."

It is all following the Star treck story very nicely, except that the Treckies received no critical acclaim. The difference now is that there are no film makers left in Hollywood, only accountants. If the sums don't add up the product disappears. It is comforting to know that apparently doozers like Waterworld, costing $300 million, are now considered to be the most successful movies that Universal ever made. When I was there last year I was told that WW has made over $800 million dollars, even including the theme park displays. All is never lost. And I have not yet heard the fat lady sing. (Though I have not yet seen the Hannigan in Date Movie)

If you look at the current crop of so-called sci-fi on American TV there is Lost, Invasion, The 4400 etc. Very low budget productions by comparison with Firefly. A few whispy light effects and the occasional explosions, and mostly taking place on pre built lots. JW is a little too ambitious for his own good!

Thanks for the info, Carlyle and Larry.

There has been a 12 minute interview with Joss on Radio 5.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/listen/audioarchive.shtml

Look in the Entertainment section. It's from last Thursday (Feb 23). I don't know how long they'll keep the link there; often these things are removed after one week. Enjoy!

Today is the day that Serenity comes out on DVD in the UK. I had to drive a 128 mile round trip to find it in a Cinema so I only got to see it once. Happily it is on Amazon for £11.99 (Yes, Nite Owl.....you are probably shocked at how much we pay for DVD's in England)

Shiny.

Doc Ferris

Hello Carlyle, I'm not shocked. I think DVD's are even more expensive over here... I *know* CDs are.

Hope you'll enjoy the interview, and the DVD.

£11.99? I got mine for 10.something and I had some promotional credit somehow. Postie didn't deliver it today though but I should have it tomorrow

While I enjoyed Serenity a lot when I first saw it at the cinema (I enjoyed it enough to buy Firefly on DVD) I have to say it is a much better film having seen the series beforehand.

In my initial review I couldn't see the point in having Inara in the film, but I've realised if she hadn't have been there Firefly fans would have revolted. While she still doesn't do much, though she does act as Mal's conscience still, in some of the deleted scenes her position is much better explained. It's one of those things, had the Inara deleted scenes been in the film, a lot of newbies like myself would have been but the Firefly fans would have really appreciated them.

It also expands upon a lot of the themes in the series, which I really appreciated, the main one being Mal's love for Serenity, shown especially at the end with the conversation with River in the cockpit. It was quite funny but I also felt a sense of revulsion when the bodies from Haven were put on the ship as Reaver camoflage. It didn't get me at all when I saw the film in the cinema, but having seen the series, with Serenity as a real tenth character, it seemed very wrong.

I do feel the film is very Mal-centric, not necessarily a bad thing, because it meant we could get inside Mal's head a bit more, which I enjoyed. I've always thought that Mal did stop fighting the war when he eventually surrendered, I think all comments of "The war's over" and similar in the film and series miss a point. Mal does just want to get on and live his life free, Serenity isn't supposed to invoke the memory of the Battle of Serenity Valley, more to dispel it. Serenity is what Mal seeks and craves. I believe Mal named his ship that partially because he hopes the ship will help him achieve that state, but also to dispel the Battle. The ship Serenity is Mal's aspirations for something new, somewhere he can achieve peace and I thought the little shot of Inara lovingly repainting the ship's badge at the end really highlighted this, while giving the fans a bit of a smile because we know Inara could be this for Mal as well.

That said, I missed the others, I would have loved to see a bit more of everyone, especially Kaylee and Wash, because they alone never fought. Even Simon fought to rescue River, but Wash and Kaylee are simply there for family and home. It made their decision to go into battle and their sacrifices (though Wash's death was still pointless and cruel) more powerful.

I even came to like the Operative, he was an interesting character and a good foil for Mal, and there was one deleted scene in particular that I felt they should have left in.

A final bit, I just want to rave about the funeral scene, I thought it was so beautiful. Very simple but packed with emotion and resonance, espcially Zoe carrying the candle to Wash's grave, looking very feminine and wearing the 'slinky dress' Wash had always wanted her to wear. Even at the very end we got to see new sides to characters.

That was a nice read, Honestlago. Thanks. It actually makes me want to give the film another go.

I didn't take to the film when I went to see it at the cinema (twice - I was so disappointed the first time that I went back, thinking I must have missed something), but I must admit I wasn't fond of 'Firefly'. It was obviously a very good show, but it just didn't engage me.

I did plan to rent the 'Serenity' DVD and try again, but our local rental store isn't all that great and they don't have a copy. I guess I'll wait until the DVD turns up in a sale and buy it then. I'm a bit reluctant to spend £12 (or whatever) when there are so many other things I'd really like to get first.

I have my Serenity DVD. Not got on to the extras as yet but the film is interesting. JW put a lot more into it than perhaps he should. There are layers in the story which are not apparent with one quick viewing at the cinema. The construction is just as accomplished as the TV series but the emphasis is completely different, not least on the relative weight of the individual characters. May be that it is too complex for the square state trekky fans to get in to, in which case we are lost. (Not "Lost"...I hate that program!)

C