Found this through a good friend’s livejournal, though I have no idea how reliable the site she got it from is:
*I love “Firefly” – so much so every time I’d see it I’d squeeze its cheeks, bring it in closer and share saliva with it. It’s a show that had the danglers to say “screw you! We’re not going anywhere!” despite the fact the network yanked it after 12 episodes. And then, just when it looked like it was done, it remerged as a full-length mother-hoppin’ movie – and by golly if it didn’t bring a lump to George Lucas’s throat.
When Alan Tudyk told me on the phone this morning that a sequel to “Serenity” – that’s the name of the “Firefly” movie for those who’ve been up at Guantanamo Bay for the past couple of years – could be happening I just about dropped the phone (I didn’t though, because the last time I did that it landed in the loo. Fried itself. And as a consequence, I lost all my numbers.) Tudyk says the newly-released “Serenity : Special Edition“ DVD has been selling so hot, that there’s talk in doing another movie.
“They had to put [the new DVD] out because they’ve been selling out of the other one and so Universal’s like ‘So, let’s do another one’. And now… there’s now a chance there’s going to be another movie”.
Tudyk agrees that even if it was a direct-to-DVD movie, it’d still be worthwhile. Especially since the whole DVD sequel is a big trend.
“It really is”, says Tudyk. “Everybody in the Firefly crew – and that includes the ones who died in the movie – are excited about the prospect of doing another”.
* Rest of article
I’ve actually yet to buy the special collector’s edition despite already giving my old copy to a friend in preparation of getting it but if this were to happen, I would be there opening night.
I have the Special Edition, although we haven’t watched it yet.
As for the rumor mill…I’ll believe it when Joss says it’s a go, not before. I refuse to get my hopes up for a dream that won’t likely come true. But “Direct-To-DVD” might be the future of any number of franchises, since it seems to be the most popular medium these days. (Although the new Babylon 5 D to DVD package sucked. I blame the writer myself.)
The movie really wasn’t all that great, which is one of the reasons it didn’t do big box office numbers. I was expecting something very innovative, and was surprised to see a fairly by-the-numbers sci-fi peice with a few moments of genuine awfulness.
There may be a niche market for a straight-to-DVD release, but I guess the question is budget; how much would it cost? It seems logical to me that CGI stuff should be getting cheaper, but, counterintuitively, you keep hearing about movie budgets getting bigger. Direct-to-DVD-and-digital-release movies may be the wave of the future if you can produce them for reasonable sums. It seems to work really well in the kid’s movie industry.
Hasn’t Wheton said that he’s done with film and or TV work for his various series? IIRC, it’s because his budgets are always too low for what he wants to show, so he’s focusing on things like the Buffy comic book as a way to get his stories out. I thought I read that in a fairly recent interview.