"Serenity" 12/20/05 (SEE post #38 for details) (1 Viewer)

[Patrick_S]

It didn't seem low to me.

 

[Chris Tedesco]

Well, just started watching Firefly! Holy crap what a good show! I watched 4 episods in a row without a blink.

How the hell did this get cancelled?

Also, why did the execs at Fox not show the original pilot first? Doesn't make any sense to me.

 

[TravisR]

It appealed to a small audience, it was expensive, it was on Fridays and was poorly promoted. None of that has a bearing on its quality but unfortunately it has all the bearing of it staying on the air.

And sci-fi westerns have always had a hard time finding an audience.

 

[Robert Ringwald]

Flipping through videobusiness magazine I found some interesting information.

Serenity is number 14 in DVD sales this week. It was 14 last week. Four weeks in, that's pretty good.

As of right now, it's made 9+ million in DVD/VHS RENTALS. Not amazing, but good.

And those who think DVD sales aren't that important for a movie's success... there were a number of films that had triple their business on DVD.

Example, THE NOTEBOOK (81 million in theaters) made something like 150 million in DVD sales (US ALONE)

Serenity stands to make a pretty good profit on DVD. If rentals are 9 million, the sales have easily topped that by a significant number.

 

[Will_B]

Does DVD Rentals mean the amount of money rental chains spend on buying that DVD, or are they referring to the rental profit that the video stores made (and how the heck would they know that, if so)?

 

[Jason Seaver]

Rather than a simple sale to the largest retailers, studios often use a revenue sharing model where the chain buys DVDs at a highly discounted price and pays the studio a portion of the rental fee.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I thought that was just VHS; I thought since DVD is a sell-through medium they just purchased their copies at full price and cut the studios out.
I'm probably mistaken though.

 

[Holadem]

Interesting. Does this mean that renting a movie from BB or even Netflixing it still constitutes financial support for the movie -- as in, the studios get a piece of that action?

--
H

 

[Zack Gibbs]

I believe Adam is right, we all know the pricing for DVD is very different than was for VHS. Blockbuster video had the opportunity to make a deal with the studios that would have carried over the rental pricing structure but turned it down, thinking they didn't need to share those profits with the studios. Low and behold most people buy their movies now and Blockbuster is on its deathbed. The studios get nothing from today's video rentals(what's left of them anyways).

 

[Malcolm R]

So based on the last couple posts, "Serenity" has made over $9 million in VHS rentals only? Seems very high considering you cannot hardly find VHS to rent anymore.

If not, I would again have to ask Will_B's question: upon what are they basing these rental figures?

 

[Chris Minogue]

Here is some more interesting info...




http://www.the-numbers.com/interacti...hp?newsID=1704

 

[Mark E J]

I don't understand the comment that it won't make a profit until it hits network tv.

According to Box office Mojo Serenity only missed it's production budget buy just under 200,000. So if it has already made over 9 million in rentals alone it means it is already making a profit.

I know the production budget does not count advertising costs, but they cannot be that much since this film was barely advertised at all. Only two traliers and a couple tv spots shown in a few small markets. I think that the rentals alone should cover most if not all the advertising costs, so all of the DVD sales should be profit for Universal.

This ofcourse does not mean a greenlight for a theatrical sequel but it does look good for at least a STD sequel.

BTW I think the best shot for more Serenity movies is not so much DVD profits (although they are nesessary)as the sucess of Wonder Woman. If that is a huge hit it will put Joss Whedon on the a-list map the same way Spiderman did for Rami and Batman did for Burton. If this happens I don't think it's too far fetched for Universal to bring back Serenity to trade on the new Whedon popularity.

 

[Robert Ringwald]

The magazine said DVD/VHS rentals. Don't know how much of that the studio makes, but I know it includes both because there were two numbers. The one for DVD was like 9.2 million, and for VHS it was something like .02 million.

Point is... the studios make a HECK of a lot more on dvd sales than they'd like you to believe.

The Incredibles made more money on DVD than it did in theaters. It was expected to be a hit (17+ million units sold) but I think people underestimate the profits from home video. The studios certainly see them.

Also, Firefly wasn't on the charts for the top 20 or so for 2005, but it didn't start selling mega big until the end of the year. LOST: Season 1 made something like 71 million. Damn.

 

[Malcolm R]

No! Why does everyone assume the gross numbers reported by Mojo, Guru, and other hollywood press all go back to the studios? Movie theaters don't screen these films as a charity service. Only about 55-65% of the gross goes back to the studio.

So if the gross is $30M, the studio sees only about $18M.

In order to break even in theaters, the film needs to gross about 2x its cost/budget.

Same with rentals being talked about here. I'm sure those are gross totals that casually forget to mention that about half of that probably stays with the retailers. The actual amount of the rentals back to Universal is probably $5M to $6M.

Therefore, based on theatrical and rentals, Universal has probably only seen about $25M or so come back to them (excluding DVD sales), or still much less than the $40M cost of the film.

 

[Robert Ringwald]

I'd say it's something along these lines... assuming the studio takes 50% of the grosses

There's also the 3 million deal with USA to run the series, as well as all the merchandise that they get license money and percentages of.

DVD sales have been great, and if UNDERWORLD: Evolution has shown us anything it's that video hits of genre films can spawn bigger fanbases. The same happened with Resident Evil: Apocalypse.

Even if we never see another big screen adaptation, there WILL be some kind of revival (most likely Direct to Video *universal loves those cheapies* but also possibly a TV movie.

Joss is busy with Wonder Woman and that other movie right now, as well as the Buffy comic and second serenity comic series he's doing.

Is it sad that I've preordered a region 2 copy in addition to my region 1 just because I can't stand the region 1 artwork? I suppose I can justify it because there's that extra feature region 1 didn't get... but I know deep inside it's just the darn box...

 

[Mary_P]

I feel your pain. I opted for the R4 release, which has a few features that aren't on the R1 (and I don't think are on the R2, but I could be wrong):

Joss Whedon Q&A Session: Filmed at Fox Studios

Talk A Walk On Serenity: Cast and crew take us on a special tour of the Serenity ship

The Green Clan: Expose on cinematographer Jack Green and his team

JB Hi-Fi also lists "A Filmmaker's Journey" as being exclusive to the Australian release, but I see it is shown on Amazon UK's listing. JB also has an exclusive slip-case; I believe the art on the box inside is the same as on the UK edition. EZY DVD sells it with an exclusive collector's tin.

I gotta say, though, my favorite alternate cover is a fan-made one. I LOVE the "llamafied" version -- that's replacing the official studio cover on my R1 disc....

Ummm, I'd love to post a link to this, but the forum won't let me -- apparently I haven't "me too'd" on enough threads yet. Google "'11th hour' serenity llamas" and click on the hit titled "Firefly/Serenity Alt Cover Designs by 11th Hour" -- should be second in the list.

Enjoy....!

 

[Matt Czyz]

Here you go:

 

[Will_B]

Indeed, beyond the theatrical and DVD money, this film has merchandise. Not all films do. So let's name it. To date, the Universal Studios Consumer Products Group has earned "cashy money" (as Mal might say) from several licences:

- Titan Books licensed the rights to produce the official companion book for Serenity (which has sold so well they've announced they're also going to make one for Firefly, though the latter license comes from Fox)

- Pocket Books a Division of Simon & Schuster licensed the rights for the novelization of Serenity

- Diamond Select Toys licensed the rights to produce action figures of the film (though granted, these did not sell well due to them not looking as good as people expected)

- Inkworks licensed the rights to produce trading cards for Serenity (and Firefly, though the latter license comes from Fox)

- Dark Horse Comics licensed the rights to produce ornaments (similar to models, but a different license. Pre-orders of the Serenity ship are reportedly going well)

- Dark Horse Comics licensed the rights to a comic book series that fills in the gap between the tv series and the movie (the sales of which "did better than we imagined" according to Dark Horse's Scott Allie ...and which is available this month in trade paperback form, which tends to sell even better)

- Hot Topic licensed the rights to produce official t-shirts of the film (3 designs, all sold out within 3 weeks)

All in all, Universal must be pretty happy that a so-so performing film has generated this kind of interest among companies. It may have been a slow build, but build it has.

 

[Mary_P]

Thanks. I seem to have enough posts now, so let me try this again....

http://home.att.net/~srt.art/

You may want to click on the high-res version to see this in all its goofiness (as well as her original, very nice, pre-llamafied art). There are some dubious spellings and additions to the cast list. She even messed with the Universal and Dolby logos, as well as the region code.

Fans have too much fun....

 

[Andy_Bu]

This is great news, do you have any idea when?

And do you know if the comic book is delayed, its seems like the release date is changing...

http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=10-759

Andy