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More Serenity buzz
Serenity may be based on a cancelled TV show, but it’s autumn’s most anticipated film!
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 Can Joss Whedon save the Hollywood action flick? Right now, as he hobbles about with a damaged knee, it may seem a bit of a tall order, even for the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But, if not Whedon, then who? The old masters of noise and spectacle are in trouble. A billion dollars’ worth of digitally enhanced action films — from Ridley Scott’s crusaders to Michael Bay’s clones — have landed in America with a bored splat. Only releases that have surprised, from the retooled Batman to a documentary about penguins, have made any kind of lasting impact. So here we are, at the end of blockbuster season, and box- office hopes are resting on a low-budget sci-fi tale, based on a little-seen television series made by a man whose track record in big-screenery is, in his own words, an “abysmal failure”. And it is being premiered, not in LA or Cannes, but next week in Edinburgh. Is Hollywood insane? Usually, but maybe not this time. For, in the two years since Buffy ended, followed last year by its sterner spin-off, Angel, Whe- don’s fans have only grown more devoted, especially in the UK. The proof is in the crush: more than 40,000 of them crashed the website when sales opened for two Edinburgh film festival screenings of his directing debut, Serenity. The organisers arranged two more: the first of them sold out in 60 seconds. Tickets for a public interview with the amiable auteur are selling on eBay for hundreds of pounds. And this for a mere writer.
Back at home in west Los Angeles, the 41-year-old is struggling with more mundane problems. Universal, the studio that bankrolled the film, has sent somebody to get back the Apple computer they loaned him for scoring Serenity. Whedon is having trouble unplugging it. His second child, eight-month-old Squire (sister to Arden), is bellowing in the background. This afternoon, he is preparing for an operation on a knee ligament. He tore it while running — an entirely predictable result of a new midlife health regime. “But I shall be ready for Scotland. What’s this about deep-fried Mars bars?” And what is this about Serenity? After Angel was prematurely killed, Whedon started with a space-opera, set 500 years in the future, where everyone speaks a mixture of Wild West American and Chinese. They dress and shoot like cowboys. Breaking Star Trek directive number one, there are no aliens, just a dysfunctional group of nine irritable strangers on board a rattling Firefly-class cargo ship called Serenity.
Fans are still outraged that episodes of Firefly, as it was then known, were shown out of order, postponed due to sports events and then cancelled after a handful of episodes. Others were amazed the series went out at all. Firefly was not cheap to make, its wit slyer and darker than Buffy’s or Angel’s, its concerns more humane. Friday-night Americans prefer their genres unblended: none of this pummelling one moment, punning the next. Nobody but Whedon would have got the series made in the first place.
But DVDs have changed the economics of television... Continue reading
| | [by jademaliburoad (The Sunday Times) ] [0 comments]
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer, its characters, and the Buffy logo are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, the WB Television Network, and Twentieth Century Fox. Angel-The Series, its characters, and the Buffy logo are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, the WB Television Network, and Twentieth Century Fox.Other Series, their characters and logos are property of the proper right owners.
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