Opens September 30, 2005

[Dave]

from SciFi Wire

Serenity Jumps From TV

Joss Whedon, who wrote and directed the upcoming SF movie Serenity, told SCI FI Wire that it's been a challenge adapting his low-rated Fox TV series Firefly for the big screen. "It's incredibly hard, you know, building a story that doesn't repeat or contradict what we've already done, that satisfies the fans, and yet is really made for people who have never seen the show," Whedon said in an interview on the film's set at Universal Studios in Los Angeles last August. "[It's] incredibly tricky. There's pitfalls everywhere."

Serenity, set 500 years in the future, picks up the story of the intrepid crew of the Firefly-class transport ship Serenity. Fox canceled Firefly in the middle of its first season, but fan enthusiasm for the show and its subsequent DVD release persuaded Universal Pictures to green-light a movie adaptation. "It's the hardest story I've ever had to structure," Whedon said. But, he added, "once I get writing these people, it's the easiest thing in the world, because I know them so well. The other thing is, a TV show is built around slow development of character. A movie ... is built around momentum. They're very different things. So ... you have to let some things drop, and you have to speed some things up, and you have to sort of know which ones are which."

Serenity also marks longtime TV veteran Whedon's feature-film directorial debut. Whedon has been critical in the past about how his movie scripts for such films as Alien: Resurrection and the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie have been realized. "After Alien: Resurrection I said the next person who ruins one of my scripts is going to be me," he said, with tongue in cheek. "And I think I'm doing a fine job. Actually, I think that the director on occasion could use a little more imagination and the writer could have shut up occasionally. We fight, but we're still getting along better than I usually do."

Seriously, Whedon said, "It's been great. ... Unlike TV, I have the time to really explore what it is I'm doing and to go back and reassess every day. But the piece is so fluid, because it's a domino effect. Every time you shoot a scene, it affects 50 other scenes. It's not like you have eight days and you know exactly what you need, and you're out and you go on to the next one. It's constantly shifting. Hopefully not so much that it doesn't know where it's going." Serenity, which is in post-production, opens April 22, 2005. Universal Pictures is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.

I think he's making it quite quickly. If this is correct then it means that it will be out before 'Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith'.

[Dave]

I have a couple of more news items from SciFi Wire...

from SciFi Wire

Serenity Gets Darker

Nathan Fillion—who stars in the upcoming SF movie Serenity, based on Fox's canceled series Firefly—told SCI FI Wire that his character, Capt. Mal Reynolds, will be a little darker than he was allowed to be in the TV show. "I think he's still on that same vein," Fillion said in an interview during a break in filming at Universal Studios in Los Angeles last August. "I think if anything, I think he's a little darker than he was before. I think he's a little more empty than he was before. He, too, has had the rug pulled out from under him a couple of times since we've known him in the series. And I also think that, because we're in a film, another difference versus television is we can be allowed to be darker. ... We don't have a ... TV producer saying, 'Make him more likable and funny.'"

Fillion plays the captain of a small transport ship 500 years in the future, leading a ragtag crew of survivors from a galactic civil war. The film will feature the series' creepy cannibalistic renegades, the Reavers, and also give Reynolds a love interest, Fillion said. As for making the film, he added, "It's a little different. We had eight days to put on a one-hour show. Now we've got the better part of three months to put out a two-hour show. So the timing is a little different. But certainly I can tell that the quality is also extremely different."

As for his acting style, Fillion said, "I haven't made any drastic changes or anything. I have noticed that my nose is a lot bigger on screen. It's like, there are times when if you could put your arms up, that's about how wide my nostrils are. I've always known I have big nostrils, but now I could park a Buick in them."

Serenity Surprises Whedon

Joss Whedon, writer and director of the upcoming SF movie Serenity, told SCI FI Wire that shooting the feature-film version of his Fox TV series Firefly is every bit as stressful as churning out an hour of TV drama every week. "It's been as stressful, and I thought it'd be less stressful," Whedon said in an interview during a break in filming last summer at Universal Studios in Los Angeles. "I thought I'd be, you know, golfing in between takes and writing sonnets."

Whedon makes his feature-film directorial debut with Serenity after having created and run TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly, many of whose episodes he both wrote and directed. With Serenity, he said, "two things have not worked in my favor. One is, although I don't have three shows to run—and believe me, nothing will ever be as hard as that was—the movie takes up your attention in the way that three shows do. All of the creative energy that you're usually pouring into telling 20 to 40 stories a year, you're pouring into one, and you find you need it. You find you wake up in the middle of the night and go, 'His pants are too baggy.' And it's important. You have to watch everything so carefully, because every mistake that you make is going to be 40 feet high. Whenever you think, 'Well, maybe that's good enough,' I just say to myself: 'Cineramadome.'"

Still, Whedon said, he's finding the filmmaking process surprising, even after having produced 13 hours of Firefly. "You really are surprised by what you do in a way that you're not so much with TV," he said. "Because, even though I know these guys—even though [we're] on Serenity, which are known quantities to me—I'm still surprised, more than I ever have been in TV. I'll do, you know, 10 takes and watch [them] and go, 'Boy, this first one was better than the one with all my notes in it. Remind myself not to tell him that.' ... [The movie] talks back to you, and it does it while you're still making it. In TV, it doesn't do that 'til you're done, which is what's different about it." Serenity, starring Nathan Fillion, is in post-production with an eye to an April 22, 2005, release. Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.

[Dave]

from Scifi Wire

Serenity Bumped To Fall

Joss Whedon, writer and director of the upcoming SF movie Serenity, told the Whedonesque Web site that the film version of his canceled Fox TV show Firefly has been pushed back to Sept. 30, 2005, from its original April 22 opening date. "See, sometimes studios shuffle around release dates," Whedon told fans on the site.

Whedon added, "So what happened? Well, nothing terribly original. April got crowded with a lot of titles aimed at a similar demographic, and the studio [Universal Pictures] decided September was a clearer corridor for the film to make the kind of impact it should. This isn't about a lack of confidence in the film. In fact, they told me this before they even saw it. And now they have seen it, and unless they're way better liars than I'm used to, they dug it. Actually, they dug it pretty large, which is a good sign, since there's not a single finished effect in the film. There's no reworking the end, no reshoots, no 'does it have to be in space?' It's just a marketing issue. Now you'll get to watch lots of trailers in the summer. And hopefully, by the time it comes out, other people, people who ain't us, will get a whiff of what we're up to and come along, too."

Serenity picks up the story of the ragtag crew of a transport ship 500 years in the future as they try to get by in the wake of a galactic civil war. "I love this movie," Whedon said. "I HATE waiting to show it [to] you. I felt pretty much the way I imagine you're feeling right now when they told me. But these guys know what they're doing, and they're trying to protect their investment, not bury it. So I gotta be a grownup. The release date is Sept. 30. Hopefully it won't change again." Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.

Anyone believe this?
Anyone not believe this?

Anyone know which titles appealing to the same demographic are being released in April? They are news to me, and I'm part of that demographic I would think!

[Annette]

I have read in this months Dreamwatch that Serenity has been bumped back on its release. Am sure that its going to be September now. Will check later to confirm.

annette

[obcooke]

According to the Internet Movie Database the only films that might qualify as competition are "The Amityville Horror" which opens the week before and "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" which opens the week after.

Honestly, the whole month of April looks a little weak for openings and doesn't have very much SciFi listed.

Here's hoping that there isn't some background intrigue going on.

[Dave]

According to FireflyFans.net:

http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.as...10775&m=148009

The distributors think they may have made a mistake in bumping it back to the fall. It seems obvious now that it was Episode III in May that they were afraid of, but the feedback they are getting now shows a much greater interest in Serenity than they had realised, and if they had released it in April, they now believe it could have ran all through Summer.

[McHorde-Trooper]

This Friday on Sci-Fi (US) they showed the trailer for the movie during the 2nd episode of Firefly.

The Serenity looks really promising, but so far I'm not impressed with the TV show.

It's very dry.
Visually the TV show looks pretty good, but the pace is off.

The movie looks like it will be high action and excitement.

[Dave]

I think these are correct:

Friday, September 30th 2005
Serenity (2005) : US Release

Thursday, October 6th 2005
Serenity (2005) : Netherlands Release

Friday, October 7th 2005
Serenity (2005) : UK Release

Wednesday, October 19th 2005
Serenity (2005) : France Release

Wednesday, November 2nd 2005
Serenity (2005) : Belgium Release

Friday, November 4th 2005
Serenity (2005) : Norway Release
Serenity (2005) : Sweden Release

Thursday, November 10th 2005
Serenity (2005) : Australia Release

Friday, November 11th 2005
Serenity (2005) : Finland Release

Thursday, November 17th 2005
Serenity (2005) : Argentina Release

Thursday, November 24th 2005
Serenity (2005) : Czech Repulic Release
Serenity (2005) : Germany Release

[Shaun]

Serenity opens on the 29th of September here in Australia. Joss is currently here doing a promotional tour and appearing on several shows including Rove Live tonight.

I can't wait , my brother got a chance to go to an advance screening and said it was awesome (I couldn't go due to stupid uni ).

[Dave]

Originally posted by Shaun
Serenity opens on the 29th of September here in Australia.

Does that mean Australia gets it before the USA?
Or, is it in reality only like a few hours difference because of Time Zones?

[Status]

Originally posted by Dave
Does that mean Australia gets it before the USA?
Or, is it in reality only like a few hours difference because of Time Zones?

Actually I think that means they get it before us cause they are about 15 hours ahead of us. When we get it on the 30th, it should be 1st Oct in Austrailia.

[Shaun]

Yeah we get it a bit before everyone else. No idea why, but I'm not complaining .

[obcooke]

I remember when I was anticipating the opening of the X-Men movie - a writer from Australia wrote to an American audience:

"I envy you because I wish I could see it again for the first time."

Yep, Aussies get them first. Mmm, how much is discount airfare to Down Under?

[MsGudBod]

Not enough, I guarantee!

However, "Serenity" is going to be awesome, so it just might be worth the air fare.

I have always thought Joss Whedon was a brilliant writter, and I knew he couldn't have been totally responsible for that train wreck I call "Buffy the movie".