Serenity very nearly at #1 in UK...

How odd. Here in Nottingham, I've seen no advertising for Serenity at all - not on TV, not in cinemas, and not on any billboarRAB or bus-stops. We have had wall to wall Wallace and Gromett though.

Meh - go figure.
 
I know there were a lot of trailers shown on TV over the 3 weeks leading up to release cos everyone on cantstopthesignal kept commenting everytime they saw one - I kept missing all of them though, and eventually saw one the evening before the premiere :)

I haven't seen any Bus Stop posters at all around the Manchester area (and believe me I've been looking) but when I was down in London last week there were loaRAB and loaRAB all over the tube.
 
The UK placings mean nothing for the studios they'll be looking at how it does in their biggest market (US) and how much money it makes overall.

As Cindylover says the drop-off in the states was bad. They didn't fully expect it to open well but after it didn't open at #1 in the states for it to be considered a word-of-mouth success it would have to have increased or held the same takings on its second weekend, afaik it didn't.

The US DVD release is now mooted for December. From that I read that the studio has given up and accepted it as a flop. By releasing it in December on DVD they're disincentivising people from going to see it. If it's gonna be out on DVD in 8 weeks why bother paying $10 to see it at the cinema?
 
Hardly any film ever does this nowadays, I did a project on this. Plus, the dvd usually makes more than the box office now, so if it can get $18m at the box office, it's fine.

They always make the money back eventually one way or another.
 
I can't access the chud link...

Thing is, here in the UK I've seen little if any promotion. I know all about the word of mouth yadda yadda, but I haven't seen a single advert/poster/trailer for it prior to it coming out...

Maybe that's cos I live in the northern wilderness that is Aberdeen but a lot of people I know haven't even heard of it...

It's like Firefly all over again...
 
I've seen nothing, as others have said. And you have to remember that not everyone gets the Sci-Fi channel. I've seen tv trailers for P&P, adverts everywhere, and similar for W&G but nothing at all for Serenity...

I know a load of people who hadn't even heard of it... it needed a little more push... get say Joss or Nathan on Jonathon Ross etc...

But hey. I think it did good :D
 
A quote from their 'at the movies' box at the side of the review 'Joss Whedon reincarnates his axed TV show Firefly with excellent results' :D

I also like the last paragraph of the review proper you get if you follow the link.

'In short, Serenity is up there with the best sci-fi movies of the year, with a great injection of fun which certain others in the genre have sorely lacked. With its great script, performances and action, it is sure to keep fanboys happy whilst undoubtedly gaining some converts. ' :D:D
 
rabroad here:

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/RAB25111.html

In the UK, Serenity opens as the number #1 new opener, the #1 movie for the weekend and the #1 highest gross per screen.

The gross per screen is actually FAR higher than the competition - more than double the hyped "Nightwatch", for example.

Serenity has taken $23m in 10 days, including international figures, and has only opened in 3 countries so far. It opens in the rest of the world over the next 3 months.

Serenity's US weekend 'actual' (not estimated, actual figures) drop was 47% this weekend, which is the lowest Sci-fi genre drop since "Star Wars Episode 2" in 2002.

Combining internationally and DVD sales (which will be huge, make no mistake -- Firefly is one of the highest selling DVD sets ever made), Serenity WILL turn a profit. It is NOT a flop.

That said, I'm not sure if it'll be worth a sequel at this stage. If other international markets open #1, it will push a lot of money Serenity's way.

In the UK, Serenity is the biggest movie of the weekend, and also: #1 Monday, too.

Serenity also grew 39% from Friday to Saturday in the UK.

It's opened big...

rabroad have a 5 star review of the movie here: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/RAB25092.html (spoilers)
 
It had a lot of genre advertising (Buffy, Star Trek etc). Then it moved to ITV's football coverage, and "The X Factor" in the last week.

The advertising budget was about a million, which included all the underground plastering, but no bus stops and such.

Serenity's highest gross per screen (profit for cinema) worldwide was... The UK. Also, the lowest advertising budget I think.
 
Now, I know that some people who knew nothing about Firefly and aren't particularly sci-fi nuts liked this film. But I saw it tonight and I have to say I thought it was - nearly - a truly terrible film.

I say nearly since at around the hour and a quarter mark things started getting interesting and fun. But until then - sheesh. You wanna know why the movie dropped from 1 to 10 in a week? It's only good for sci-fi nuts. I thought the acting was terrible (though, to be fair, some of this was very poor characterisation), and a laughable amount of plot exposition shoe-horned into the first half hour made it a real ordeal. I simply couldn't care less about any of the characters.

Denial just about sums it up. To break out of the loud and passionate sci-fi clique, it just has to be better than this. It can be done - Star Wars (the first one of course) and The Matrix (the first one of course) both transcended their genres by giving us superb plotting, strong central characters and motivations and some groundbreaking FX.

You know, I knew so little about Serenity before seeing it I didn't even know it was a TV series in an earlier life. Now I do, it all makes sense. The acting (and casting) was sub-Next Generation.

I know I may get flamed for this. Serenity fans - just enjoy what you have, watch it a million times on DVD and knock yourselves out. But please don't expect the rest of the world to join you.
 
First of all, chill out. :rolleyes: Blimey, you do get worked up!

All I'm saying is I just don't think you should dismiss it as 'sh*te' out of hand when you haven't seen it.

I'm intrigued to find out how your frienRAB (who are calling it another classic) have seen it though.

Honestly, I'm not looking for 'fight', I'm only asking.
 
That confuses me a little. The movie got extremely positive reviews in the mainstream media (Guardian, Times, Film 2005, Mail etc), which doesn't say "specialist genre piece" to me. Hmmmm... Different strokes, and all that, I guess. Apart for Star Wars, I'm hardly a sci-fi fan, but I loved this movie personally - I thought its strengths were the performances and the dialogue (far stronger than The Matrix and Star Wars prequels to my eyes). Plotting was a maybe touch flaky in places, but that didn't affect my enjoyment at all. To me, it had one of the sharpest scripts I've seen (heard) in a movie of any genre in quite some time.
 
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