Huge, totally agree, MissKittysMom, huge.

Chris inVirginia | September 22, 22:06 CET

What you didn't mention is that he also links to a site which lets bloggers apply for press credentials to upcoming press screenings of the film -- meaning, if you blog, and there's a press screening coming to your town, no waiting in lines or handling of passes for you, you're guaranteed to get in.

theonetruebix | September 22, 22:22 CET

Wow. That's major. And the PR blog idea is pretty genius. Instead of relying on old-school print and TV advertising, they're inviting an influx of on-the-spot reporters into the mix to generate peer-based buzz that's likely to be more trusted by consumers. It's using the internet like a thousand-tentacled octopus to spread Serenity everywhere.

Wiseblood | September 22, 22:27 CET

Yup. By comparison, bigness itself looks really titchy.
(ObAtributionDammit: attributiondammit.)

I understand that Universal is really going all-out on non-traditional marketing, as well as traditional. But this is really marketing on the knife-edge; if a studio tried this with a movie that was an absolute dog, the word-of-mouth publicity would kill the movie even before opening day.

It'll be interesting to see whether any other studios try this approach, and for what movies, and with what results.

MissKittysMom | September 22, 22:48 CET

I'll reserve judgement on this one, if blogs were the great white hope then we'd have Howard Dean in the White House.

Simon | September 22, 22:55 CET

I can't possibly call the range of influence of this, but it looks great, the net is everywhere and every big or little bit helps. I swear, by now I'm so emotionally involved in this movie I'm actually nervous about the opening weekend.

EdDantes | September 22, 23:00 CET

...or McCain :P I think it will help a lot, and is very useful in combo with other tools, but by itself it will not do the job. Regardless, very cool to see. You, too, EdDantes? I'm getting jittery :D

[ edited by zeitgeist on 2005-09-22 21:02 ]

zeitgeist | September 22, 23:01 CET

For the last few days, I've been mentally composing headlines about the box office performance. Bloody nerve wracking to be in the end game.

Simon | September 22, 23:03 CET

I'd Metafilter it, but it feels almost like self-linking to me, so I can't. It would be great to have it instapundited, slashdotted, mefied, boing-boinged, kiroshin'd and whedonesqued in one day. :-)

Caroline | September 22, 23:04 CET

I can't say that I've composed any headlines yet, but it's getting harder and harder to concentrate on anything else!

MissKittysMom | September 22, 23:23 CET

Hang on, does this offer of going to screenings apply to LiveJournal users?

Simon | September 22, 23:28 CET

Yeah. This is innovative marketing, but, I'm not sure that I'm worried about the "Neterati" knowing about Serenity and going to see it.

This *is* really nerve wracking. I feel like Universal's doing a great job, and I cheer everytime I see the ad on (which has been more times than I excpected to see it, honestly) but, it still seems like an uphill battle. This is the *real* battle of Serenity, and I hope the Browncoats aren't on the losing side of it this time.

k8cre8 | September 22, 23:37 CET

Blogs helped build Dean up, Blogs helped tear him down. It all depends on which way the pendulum is swinging.

killinj | September 22, 23:42 CET

Well I'm glad I'm not the only one being nervous! Gotta tell ya if I was one of the cast, let alone Joss himself.....pff probably good I don't work in that 'scene'. Happy to see the trailer all over the TV channels here in the US though. Anybody in europe see them yet?


Oh man that reminds me! This week starts the 'check-rottentomatoes.com-regularly-and-cringe-if-there's-not-enough-positive-reviews'- phase of the pre-opening weekend time....so far nothing on there.

EdDantes | September 23, 00:08 CET

Actually, the Tomatometer isn't off to such a good start; with seven reviews, four tomatoes, three splats.

I know there have been more reviews than that published. How do reviews get included in the tomato count?

MissKittysMom | September 23, 00:17 CET

They've got two of the best known rightwing blogs...c'mon, progressives love "Firefly" too! Time for Daily Kos, etc.!(Kos himself is a fan of the entire "Sci-Fi Friday" line-up...I'm guessing FF is his second favorite after BG)

bobster | September 23, 00:24 CET

This is only good if bloggers tend to love Serenity (or like it.) It's a risky strategy, imo. Cross fingers that this works to Serenity's advantage. And to add to bobster's plea, yes, progressives love Firefly, too! Bring 'em on.

I'm reaching stomach-achey nervousness and it's not yet one week before opening. Last night I had a dream about a rave Serenity review in the NY Times. Serenity on my mind much?

phlebotinin | September 23, 00:34 CET

A ton of bloggers have written of their love for the 'Verse so far, so yeah, I think there is a special connection, particularly for those with a sort of sort of skepticalish (regardless of political orientation) bent. Overall, political people in general seem to dig it.

Considering Joss and Tim Minear's respective well-known strong political bents left and rightward, this could lead to some kind of interesting cross-Browncoat debate/political event at some point.

bobster | September 23, 01:25 CET

I've added Electricspacegirl's link to this subject line, two links on the exact same topic is a little bit too much for the front page. You've probably noticed that we've been some what busy of late so there will be a marked effort to merge relevant Serenity topics together. Like reviews for example.

Simon | September 23, 02:01 CET

Why, we could have a Browncoat parody of the old Ackroyd/ Curtin routine on SNL! ("Jayne, you ignorant slut!") etc.

(*ducks*) All in fun, folks! Can't wait to see how all kinds of people respond to our BDBaby. (Positive vibrations!)

m'cookies actual | September 23, 02:06 CET

FYI, the first process for getting blogger/press access mentioned in the Instpundit piece (the rsvp email address) apparently is entirely separate from the townhall.com form that Instapundit links to -- or so says the person who responds to the rsvp email address.

theonetruebix | September 23, 03:12 CET

Uhm, I'm confused. The official reviews aren't up yet as I look, they say there aren't enough to start that meter yet, and the user reviews are 90% positive. Are we looking at the same site?

Btw one of the very few negative user reviews is so hilariously bad and moronically written it's just funny. He wonders what happens to River's story from the show....well that would be the PLOT of this movie! And then he accuses Joss of using 'yet another discarded idea from Empire Strikes Back." Discarded ideas? How would he know what ideas Lucas discarded for that movie? Does he clean his floors? And the 'idea' he mentions has been used by oh, every writer since writers have existed, so how he feels it's Lucas' is beyond me.

He also makes a crack that Joss should get a hairpiece....yeah this is a person people should listen to. Unbelievable, the stuff people spout while anonymous never ceases to amaze me.

EdDantes | September 23, 04:47 CET

I could 'flashofgenius' it on my blog but I'm a NASCAR blogger! Hmm... perhaps I will make an exception even though they seem to hate my area of TN so I won't get anything out of it.

Aw hell, for once I'll think of someone besides myself... and Jayne naked except for Vera! Mwhaha! ;)

flashofgenius | September 23, 04:49 CET

Josh Marshall over at Talking Points Memo is on board as well!!

SoupCatcher | September 23, 09:56 CET

On the current Rotten Tomatoes Serenity page, under the "Reviews and Articles" section, there is a "more..." link that takes you here for the current reviews. There are now 8 reviews listed, so the tomatometer will be more visible soon.

MissKittysMom | September 23, 15:15 CET

I prefer MetaCritic over Rotten Tomatoes because it doesn't rate a review as simply good or bad, it recognises that opinions vary by degrees - although a film's overall rating on a review level is still quantifiable under their system.

The Variety review isn't terrible and yet it gets a splat at Rotten Tomatoes which seems to misrepresent the review.

crossoverman | September 23, 18:02 CET

Ahh, I thought that was the same link as 'user reviews'. Soopid me. Gothca. And hey, more positives than negatives now. I checked out Metacritic, but there doesn't seem to be a 'coming soon' section. Or I'm all wrong again, which is not impossible...

EdDantes | September 23, 19:55 CET