Ben Edlund is a little scary looking.

Cris | December 29, 18:52 CET

Ben Edlund is a little scary looking.

You should have seen him when he was writing The Tick.

bookrats | December 29, 20:37 CET

Okay. So. They looked purty. Shiny even. But what did they SAY? Any new revelations during the Q&A or are they still as in the dark about the possibility of a movie as we are?

ZachsMind | December 29, 23:56 CET

Zachsmind: links to several con reports about the Q&A can be found in this thread.

The gist of the matter (somebody correct me if I'm wrong) seems to be:
+ Joss has written a script
+ The entire cast is willing to make the feature film
+ The studio says they're behind the project

I think Joss is at that difficult stage of getting a production mounted, i.e. putting the money together and getting the green light to go ahead with it. He's said he doesn't want to talk about the movie too much just yet 'cause he doesn't want to jinx it. But he's hopeful.

wren | December 30, 01:45 CET

In a somewhat related (hey I didn't know this) titbit.

From this very nice site:

Very shortly after Firefly was canceled and before the sets were torn down, we visited with both Mutant Enemy and Fox Home Entertainment and proposed a way to save the show via a direct to the consumer on DVD model. In spite of having multiple plausible solutions, the capability to execute them, and a subscriber list numbering in the thousands, we received a lukewarm response to the idea.

Some divine guerrila marketing tactics for building interest in the movie as well.

Simon | December 30, 03:10 CET

The reason why the response to direct to dvd is lukewarm is cuz at best you're talking about reaching thousands. Theoretically, television broadcasts reach the millions. Personally I believe the numbers are artificially inflated, but that's what Nielsen still claims. There are supposedly millions of people tuning into any given prime time program on a major network.

DVD sales may be in the millions, but that's a one time thing, and not a weekly thing even with reruns. Sales generally slack off after the initial release of a DVD product to less than half, and then fade into obscurity. So there's no way to have 'ratings' or other number crunching that has any relevance.

For DVD sales, the production must get paid for ahead of time, meaning you need someone to foot the bill. Then in theory, the sales of the DVD will pay the investors back. That's a major gamble that very few corporations or individuals want to take. They might as well take their money to the racetrack.

There's also absolutely no useful advertising model in a dvd product, because consumers are attracted to DVDs precisely because of the avoidance of commercials, so you can't get money from companies to help push your DVD in return for commercial time. Product placement is doubtful for Firefly, because unless the company happens to be called "Blue Sun" there's no way to incorporate it into the Firefly World. Pepsi, WalMart and McDonalds decidedly did NOT survive 500 years into Serenity's present. Or rather, if they did, they got bought out by Blue Sun.

I firmly believe in a future for direct to DVD releases, but I fear Firefly will not trailblaze that field.

ZachsMind | December 31, 01:03 CET