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

Serenity came in at No 2 in the box office on its first weekend, showing in 2188 theatres and making 10 million dollars. On a Fifty million budget this is not too bad. SMG made 40mill on a 10mill budget by comparison but the merchandising should make the difference as there is none for a horror film.

1 1 Flightplan Touchstone Pictures $15,038,000 $46,145,000 2 3424
2 - Serenity Universal Pictures $10,141,000 $10,141,000 1 2188
3 2 Tim Burton's Corpse Bride Warner Brothers $9,755,000 $32,910,000 3 3204
4 18 A History of Violence New Line Cinema $8,200,000 $8,969,000 2 1340
5 - Into the Blue MGM/Columbia $7,000,000 $7,000,000 1 2789
6 3 Just Like Heaven DreamWorks SKG $6,100,000 $38,396,000 3 3543
7 5 The Exorcism of Emily Rose Screen Gems $4,400,000 $68,522,000 4 3004
8 4 Roll Bounce Fox Searchlight $4,025,000 $12,673,000 2 1661
9 - The Greatest Game Ever Played Walt Disney Pictures $3,749,000 $3,749,000 1 1014
10 7 The 40-Year-Old Virgin Universal Pictures $3,110,000 $101,396,000 7 2152
11 6 Lord of War Lions Gate Films $2,450,000 $21,630,000 3 2125
12 8 The Constant Gardener Focus Features $1,396,000 $29,846,000 5 1004

Carlyle

Not bad indeed, Carlyle, but JW said he was more interested in week 2:

http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/features/serenity/page5.php

Well, at least he's one-fifth or one-eight on the way to a sequel! The reviews I've seen are mixed, though.

Most of the reviews I have seen are positive but I have been looking in positive places. They will insist on making comparisons with Star Wars/ Star Trek etc which is not helpful if you are trying to widen the audience for your film. It is on general release here on Thursday so ,hopefully I will get to see it before I buy the DVD this time.

C

Same here (about the release, I mean). I'm definitely going to make one of my rare visits to the cinema for it!

Not the same here, about the release. Yesterday the official Dutch Serenity site still gave this thursday as a release date, but now it's been postponed to November 17th! That's more than a month away.

I bleed for you. I went to the cinema 64 miles away to see it last night. Fabulous film!!!!!!!! A couple of surprises in it. Over all it was a well crafted film Up to the standard of the original star wars films and way better than any of the recent sci fi releases. The Theatre was sparsly attended and although it was a multi screen theatre they had not put the name up on the board outside. I think it will be difficult to spread the word. But.....You can't stop the signal......

C

Jealous now! Very strange marketing strategy by the cinema, though, showing a film without advertising it.

Five more weeks, five more weeks...

I thought it was really good, but then I liked Firefly already. It'll be interesting to see the response of people new to the characters.

It is really hard to imagine what it must have looked like to non Firefly afficionados. Lots of violence which seems to be the only selling point for most films today. I don't think the signal has reached a very large audience outside the whedonverse. The audience figures were "ok" but no more and there was no week two improvement so the word did not spread in time for the cinema release. It may work in time for the DVD in which case Serenity could be made for DVD on a smaller budget for the sequel. Trouble is JW will have to think up a new story now that he has used the original premise to its conclusion.


Shiny!