Serenity makes $300k estimated on Friday - Firefly&Serenity

I.

I doubt it will be an issue. I'm guessing Serenity will be out of pretty much every US theater by next weekend.

I'm guessing Universal will call it a day sometime mid-week.

They have Doom and Prime now.

Sigh. So many people just don't know there's a great movie afoot.

Btw, Serenity will be in the theaters in Portland for some time. It hasn't left the big theaters yet, it's only lost showtimes. When it leaves the big theaters, it will hit the smaller theaters where a lot of people will see it for the first time, in theaters where they can drink beer and eat pizza during the movie. I know a lot of people wait for movies to hit those theaters before they see them.

electricspacegirl | October 22, 23:21 CET

esg, i think this is somewhat true in the bay area too. i've often wondered how much money the studio makes from those kind of theaters, though.

injust | October 22, 23:30 CET

At least in So. California movies with any kind of following have a tendency to hang around for several more weeks in a few theaters -- not "second run" but the smaller theaters in multiplexes, but there's a lot of competition right now. Let's hope.

bobster | October 22, 23:46 CET

Probably not much, but it helps word of mouth, and that will help sell the DVDs. I didn't find Donnie Darko until I saw it at the Laurelhust (a tiny $3 theater that sells beer and pizza) and I don't think that was a hit right off the bat. That movie was also a hard sell, being a coming-of-age/sci-fi/horror movie.

[ edited by electricspacegirl on 2005-10-22 21:47 ]

electricspacegirl | October 22, 23:47 CET

Do you think Universal will pressure Joss to release a director's cut of Serenity on DVD?

electricspacegirl | October 22, 23:53 CET

Nah. But maybe extended edition.

eddy | October 23, 00:06 CET

Joss has already mentioned a second DVD release theoretically intended for 6 months after the initial one, mainly with expanded extras.

The One True b!X | October 23, 00:14 CET

Sadly, Serenity has disappeared from all the Providence/Southeastern Mass. theaters, except for one -- it started playing in the $1.99 theater (East Providence Patriot's) this weekend. That's a bad sign, because usually there's a gap of a few weeks between when movies disappear from the big theaters and appear in the cheapo one. I'm not sure what it means, but it seems sad to be relegated so soon to the bargain theater.

chickenbird | October 23, 00:29 CET

If it's getting repetitive, then don't post it. It's as simple as that.

Simon | October 23, 01:38 CET

True, Simon. I don't know if people are interested in the box office information any more, but for the most part I think it's pretty much not important now myself.

gossi | October 23, 01:53 CET

I agree too. Focus on the good things happening to Serentiy from now on, not the downs, I think we all know them and how its doing. Thats just my opinion though.

BD | October 23, 03:14 CET

I really live off this box office info...guess I'll track it myself now, no matter how unimportant it is.

It's a hobby for weird folk such as myself. :-P

UnpluggedCrazy | October 23, 03:35 CET

I might point out that the amount taken in per theater was up by quite a bit. This makes me hope that some of these theaters, the ones with a lot of screens, will keep 'Serenity' around for a while longer. It is still showing a couple of places near me (near in Iowa means not closer than 30 miles but not further than 100 miles away). I am still hoping that 'Serenity' will at least "break even" with world wide box office before it finally goes to DVD.

It is also true that 'Serenity' is doing better than most other films out right now, so I guess I'm just not as depressed about all this as everyone else (I'm probably just still in that 'denial stage').

embers | October 23, 04:16 CET

embers - it's down from last weekend, and it's also one of the lowest for the weekend in the top ten.. I still think it's a great film, but it'll be mostly gone next weekend.

gossi | October 23, 05:21 CET

In Toronto it is beginning to move out of the downtown theatres and stay in the suburbs. We are talking of maybe seeing it in a drive-in next week if it is still there. Saw it in a tiny (28 seat) theatre and it was nearly full but then 18 of the seats were taken by our group.

Lioness | October 23, 06:35 CET

Take this for what it's worth. I watched it in a packed house Saturday night in the Toronto Paramount. It was pouring rain and you have to make an effort to go to a downtown cinema. People did. Only the front seats were empty, as per usual. More people came in during the peformance and watched it from the seats where you have to lean back to scratch your forehead.

After the flick, I asked the guest desk how it's been doing. The 1:40p had 45 people, 4:40 had 50 and 7:40 had well over 120 (in 180-seat theatre). I watched it last Monday, my favourite film-watching day when there's frequently just me and about 9 others. There were 60 to 70 people.

This doesn't sound like a straight-to-DVD film to me. Razor, in another thread, saw the same thing at a UK (?) cinema.

For Toronto Browncoats, the Paramount desker said Serenity would be around for at least another week.

Hi Lioness! I know where they saw the screening and it's a VIP room, so it's quite small anyway. Although it has to be said, the cineplex in question did drop Serenity out of its main auditoriums.

Drifter | October 23, 09:00 CET

I saw it again last night (11 now, Lioness!) and the theatre, although one of the smallest in the complex (170 seats, I think), was almost full at 9:30 pm Friday night, which was the same as it was for the 6:45 shows last Saturday and Sunday, as well as the 9:30 show Saturday.

For the first time, I saw it with someone who hasn't seen the series - I lent her one of my DVD lending sets right after - and she really like the show, laughed in all the right places, and got the whole concept.

samatwitch | October 23, 10:30 CET

It looks like the US figure is going to come in around $25mil. I hope that International box office will make the worldwide figure a little more respectable.

Zoic_Fan | October 23, 16:34 CET

Gossi: you're right, I am stretching it to find my silver linings; I don't expect 'Serenity' to make more (per theater) than it did the week before. I was just happy that it was making good money above the week day take (not a fair comparison, you're right).
And regarding my comparison to other movies, I didn't mean to compair it to all the recent releases in the top ten, but to the movies that were released and then disappeared after having been out for 3-4 weeks. In the current box office situation (in the USA) only 'Flightplan' and 'History of Violence' could be said to be doing great business. 'Corpse Bride' is doing decent business but was a very expensive film to make. So I would say that 'Serenity' is doing as well or better than most other films, which have opened, done a mediocre business, and disappeared from the theaters. I am probably putting too much 'spin' on my data, but I do feel that for a film with no star power it is doing some very decent business in a depressed market.

embers | October 23, 18:42 CET

embers - I'd mostly agree with that assessment.

Just a quick update, weekend estimate including Sunday: $1,056,000, finishing 17th. I'd say it'll make a total of $25-26m domestic, which was Box Office Mojo's (revised) prediction a few weeks ago.

Including worldwide, it should be around $31m on Monday.

gossi | October 23, 20:54 CET

I was heartened to hear that, on Friday at 2 pm (while attending Wallace and Grommit with the in-laws), my husband poked his head into two different Serenity showings to find a 20+ audience. On a Friday. During the day.

And really, in the end, the movie rocks. I cannot think of any other movie in the 'verse that I've wanted to see in the theater half-a-dozen times. I consider that, the positive reviews, and that it was even made in the first place to be victories.

I do, however, expect Doom to be, well, um, doom for our BDM.

GrrrAargh | October 23, 21:08 CET

Well, I for one still check the BOM page every day. So, gossi, if you don't want to report the numbers anymore, it doesn't matter.

I cotinue hoping though, that through some miracle Joe Public is getting wise to Serenity's quality!

Harpy | October 23, 21:31 CET

Acording to BOM Doom isn't doing as well as predicted. They estimate $15M weekend, and that's from over three thousand screens for a movie that cost $60M plus whatever they spent in advertising.

zz9 | October 23, 22:50 CET

There's an article at boxofficeguru which talks about Doom's chances at the Box Office.

It contains the observation "Of the thirteen wide openers over the last three weeks, only one managed to open north of $12M.". In this situation think we keep beating ourselves up unnecessarily. Serenity is doing better than average in a lousy overall market.

CNN has a similar story here

[ edited by technovamp on 2005-10-23 23:55 ]

technovamp | October 23, 23:21 CET

Acording to BOM Doom isn't doing as well as predicted. They estimate $15M weekend, and that's from over three thousand screens for a movie that cost $60M plus whatever they spent in advertising.

Which would put Doom at the level of the BDM (50% more expensive, 50% more dollars on the opening week-end).

Do we have "precise estimates" concerning the marketing cost of Serenity? I have read everything and its contrary here and there (that few money was spent on it, that the TV clips would amount to $20M, etc...).

Le Comité | October 24, 00:41 CET

Drifter, I live in Northern Ireland, which is considered either in the UK or as part of Ireland, though it's a whole political thing. I think officially it's regarded as the UK, the film's performance here would affect the UK stats, and I also prefer typing the UK because it's quicker.

But yes, aside from the pre-screening I went to, two out of three screenings have been unusually full, with a very responsive and appreciative audience, the first on opening weekend and the laast two weeks later. So my experience may not reflect the figures, because as far as I can see Serenity has been performing solidly. The only time I went where there wasn't a decent audience was Sunday night of opening weekend, but I don't think that's a very popular time ordinarily.

I just think it's tragic that Serenity seems to be leaving our screens so soon, after all of our anticipation. It deserves to be seen by more people.

Razor | October 24, 02:22 CET

Razor, yeah, it's performed quite well in the UK all things considered... We're being killed by PG and U certificate films now :( The Corpse Bride is a far safe bet than Serenity here.

Without any spin, the UK model was pretty much as the film was expected to perform, in that there wasn't the visible genre TV cult fan thing here... but we didn't pull a Pitch Black. The cinemas want to get it off as soon as possible it appears, and that annoys me a little.

But then I remember: I have waffles in the fridge.

gossi | October 24, 02:36 CET

BOM's updated Serenity take= $30,551,352 worldwide. BOM Serenity page

Overseas numbers haven't been updated in a week. I really think they cut the movie off at the knees by cutting US theaters in half and pulling international markets. I think Serenity could have done $40+. Looks like they are really trying to protect that DVD market.

Interesting to note Doom took in $15m but the budget is $60m.

IMMORTAL | October 24, 03:25 CET

Interesting to note Doom took in $15m but the budget is $60m.

Yeahh I just saw that. Anyone else get some teensy slive of satisfaction from the fact that the great and powerful 'Doom' which as a Game is known to far more people than Firefly was, which has The Rock as a 'name' actor for action films and a siginificanly larger budget than Serenity......managed to only barely do better??? 15 million? Once again I say that our BDM's numbers were impressive by comparison.

Well, they continually mention the 'slump' that's going in theaters right now, which hasn't helped, and I get the impression that darker SF, or even SF period, is just not 'in' right now for mainstream audiences...

Then again, it could be all those nasty Doom fans. You know, the 'Doomcoats', scaring all of the mainstream audience off with their pushy behavior on a few boards. I'm expecting a 'column' any day now...

EdDantes | October 24, 06:55 CET

Doomcoats. Ha. Yeah, they're creepy.

electricspacegirl | October 24, 07:12 CET

Haha... Doomcoats... funniest thing I've read all week! :)

I'm still hopeful about a sequel, despite everyone telling me it's off. Come on... we all know that Serenity will break even at least. Sure, it'd be another gamble, but at least it's a proven franchise and it has a lot of potential. Plus the audience is definitely growing, there are way more Browncoats now than ever before.

AnotherFireflyfan | October 24, 09:02 CET

Sure, it'd be another gamble, but at least it's a proven franchise and it has a lot of potential.

As I see it now, pushing Universal to launch a sequel would be nearly as hard as launching a movie from the cancelled series. And I am not sure Joss is as determined to sustain a sequel as he was to continue Firefly after its cancellation; which I would understand: he has other opportunities right now (WW, Goner...), things that he must create from scratch, which takes time (by the time FF got cancelled, he "only" had *already running* TV shows to take care of, so more time to fight for the continuation of FF).

And Browncoats alone probably are not enough to convince Universal to launch a sequel: this projet can only happen if Joss is actively fighting for (once again, I may be wrong, but considering the figures...).

Le Comité | October 24, 10:13 CET

Ok I have just read this right now, and I had already posted UIP's announcment of the 3rd week of BO takings. It's still interesting to me a little.

Also interesting quote from that CNN article:

"I'm very concerned about the marketplace," Rocco said. "There are so many movies out, so much to choose from, yet the marketplace continues to fall, and not just by little amounts."

[ edited by nixygirl on 2005-10-24 10:02 ]

nixygirl | October 24, 11:58 CET

The weekend prediction shows something interesting... the box office may be down 57%, however keep in mind that the theater count dropped about half this weekend too. Look at the theater average - it goes from $1400 last weekend to $1200 this weekend. That's not much of a drop off at all! (Especially compared with the previous weekend theater average drop-offs.) Are we finally starting to hold our place?

AnotherFireflyfan | October 24, 15:01 CET

All I know is: my SO and I saw it again Sun. p.m.--3rd time for me, 2nd for him. It had been moved to a smaller theater in the 20 multiplex, but for the first time in my 3 viewings, a significant number of people were laughing at the punchlines. So either repeat viewers (like us), there for what might be a last chance, or people who were finally getting around to it.

Theater about 1/3 full. The only downer was a parent who for some reason had brought a six-year-old and a three- or four-year-old to a film that was clearly inappropriate for them--sometime PG-13 really means something. Six kept asking audible questions; Three babbled and cried, had to be carried out twice; they finally left, before things got TOO violent onscreen, much to everyone's relief.

Maeve | October 24, 15:43 CET

I went and saw it again on Fri. Only 8 people in the entire theater.

DarenG | October 24, 18:42 CET

I went in for viewing #10 Saturday afternoon. The times had dropped from 5 to 3 (and now it's 2), and had been moved to a smaller theater for the second time. I was disappointed that it is now sharing a theater with Flightplan (the second screen - 6 showings/day total).

There were at least 12-15 people in the theater, and they all laughed and gasped at the right times.

brownishcoat | October 24, 21:21 CET

October 22 2005