The Pop Pirate

Fandom and the Future of Smart Movies

I'm back after taking a break last week to savor the magic of Serenity's opening weekend. Unfortunately, the magic didn't carry over to the ticket receipts. The big screen Firefly continuation made only $10 million dollars opening weekend, placing it behind Disney's Flightplan. No matter how you slice it, this was a disappointing opening.

As I mentioned before, Universal experimented with this film's marketing, attempting to use the power of the internet to harness the enthusiasm of the film's built-in fan base. I don't know if they undercompensated in the traditional marketing media- running less TV ads and placing the trailer more selectively- in the hopes that the fans would pick up the slack. I also don't know if the fans turned people off with the same enthusiasm that was supposed to spread.

I don't know what went wrong, but I have a suspicion: this film was doomed from the start. It's smart, funny, heartfelt, riveting, and (god forbid) set in the future- who wants to see that? I'm being flippant, but if what if we take that question at face value? There is sadly only a small segment of the population who wants to see a quality movie that isn't a straight forward drama or doesn't have the words Cruise or Spielberg on the poster- and this segment is cordoned off from the mainstream with words like geek and fanboy.

I'm not sure where the line is drawn between Spider-Man and Hellboy, between Star Wars and Star Trek, but there is a line that a vast majority of the population is unwilling to cross. Maybe it was because of a bad experience- they caught Highlander:Endgame or Battleship Earth, and decided that Sci-Fi was not for them. Maybe it was because of the fear of the geek nation. But somewhere along the line, middle America's Moms and Pops decided that anything involving space (but not involving Tom Hanks) is not worth the time.

So where does this leave us? I envision a future where smart "genre" films are saddled with a budget ceiling, or worse- not made at all. Maybe direct-to-DVD is the future of geek-films. Who knows? But I, for one, hope beyond hope that the mainstream wakes up and smells the quality.

P.S. If you haven't seen Serenity yet (or if you want a taste to tide you over before the next time you see it), the first 9 minutes are now available on iFilm. It's only a ten minute, zero dollar investment. Check it out- you might be surprised.

posted by Jeff @ 6:30 PM