Serenity fell 51 percent at the box office this past weekend. While it did remain in the top 10, the drop and total take certainly doesn’t bode well. The film has brought in $17.6 million (against $39 million in cost) over two weeks. According to The Signal, word is it will take $80 million worldwide before a sequel is likely. It isn’t clear, though, whether that is before or after DVD sales (and rumor is the DVD is already planned for a December release, which seems awfully early for a movie that opened at the end of September).
My initial reaction is the “guerrilla” or “viral” marketing so many people were so excited about suffered a fatal flaw. It basically amounted to preaching to the converted. Fandom worked itself into a frenzy over the movie but that and the national television ads that were running just aren’t enough to overcome the general resistance to SF films unless they have big name stars like Tom Cruise or Will Smith.
It is interesting to note, though, that as of this writing the Firefly DVD set ranks fourth in current DVD sales at Amazon, The Official Visual Companion to the movie ranks 67th in current book sales and the novelization of the movie is in the top 300 in book sales.
When I talk about belief, why do you always assume I’m talking about God?
Shepherd Meria Book (Ron Glass), Serenity
