Matinee, on 11 November 2012 - 04:31 PM, said:
Its so stupid that they stopped at season one, they had a huge following and the show was super popular, popular enough to make a movie but not enough to continue filming the tv series.. wtf ?
Love the show and the movie.
Most if Firefly's popularity came well after the show was cancelled. Conversations would go like this:
Firefly fan: "Man, I miss Firefly."
Uninformed person: "You mean like lightning bugs?"
Firefly fan: "No, the TV show that was on Fox."
Uniformed person: "Never heard of it, but if it was about lightning bugs, I can see why they cancelled it."
Firefly fan: "No, it's not about lightning bugs. It's about people living on this spaceship and traveling around to different planets and...y'know what? Just watch these DVDs and get back to me."
*A little while later*
New Browncoat Convert: "Man!!! THAT WAS AWESOME!!!! Why'd they cancel it?"
Firefly fan: "Because not enough people watched it when it was on?"
New Browncoat Convert: "Why in the world not?"
Firefly fan: "Because Fox aired the episodes out of order, and on Friday nights at 8 PM Eastern/7 PM Central when people were out at high school football games or the clubs instead of at home watching TV."
New Browncoat Convert: "Well, here's your DVDs back. I bought my own set. I'll be watching this every weekend forever now."
And so the Browncoat's numbers grew and started pestering Joss, who approached Universal Pictures. Universal looked at the growing fan movement and went "Yeah, we can do a movie. We'll have everyone sign contracts for 3 movies, but we'll only guarantee making one. We'll see how it does and go from there." So
Serenity gets made, and it does a little better than breaking even in the box office (perhaps because they didn't start airing commercials for it on TV until a couple of days before it came out in theaters). Then the DVD sales almost matched the box office number. Then Universal said "#@^* Sony! We're going to back HD DVD!", and it was the 15th highest selling HD DVD as of November 29, 2006. Even after HD DVD collapsed, it took a while for the Blu-Ray version to get released (December 30, 2008).
And Joss and Nathan are still saying "Please, let us keep doing this. It was and is awesome!!!!" And Firefly fans are chiming in right there with them, but Fox hates Joss Whedon, so they have to do anything they can to screw him over.
Vermaxx, on 11 November 2012 - 08:01 PM, said:
I think FOX expected Firefly to be the instant success of Buffy and Angel, and it really wasn't because the audience didn't transfer. DIE HARD Whedon fans probably did, but the show was incredibly quirky. There were plenty of teenagers watching Buffy/Angel for the 'dreamy vampires' and not Whedon's writing.
When the Buffy TV show first came out, it wasn't an instant hit, either (though it did take off faster than Firefly). The then WB network (now merged with UPN and called "The CW" for some reason) had a tendency to give shows a much better chance than Fox ever has. Buffy didn't really take off until sometime in Season 2, and the only reason Angel took off right out of the gate is because it had a built in fan base since it was a direct spin-off from Buffy. Honestly, they could have probably come out with "Willow the Mega-Witch" or "Xander Gets Beat up...Again" and had a hit show at that point.
The Buffy TV show was based on the Buffy movie. For those of you who may not remember it, it was also written by Joss Whedon and was, at best, hokey and campy. It was also, however, produced by 20th Century Fox (Fox's movie studio), and they couldn't keep their fingers out of the script that Whedon wrote, and then couldn't understand why it sucked.
Look back on the shows that Fox has picked up that have even a small link to Joss Whedon and see how many of them are still running. The only one I know of is Bones (starring David Boreanaz). Firefly, Drive, Dollhouse, Tru Calling, Wonder Falls, Lie to Me, and plenty of others have been ditched by Fox despite being perfectly good shows.
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