Rogers Video tag Serenity as 7th highest rental - Firefly&Serenity

Thats awesome! Unfortunately that company is only for Canada, but hopefully it will be a good representation. It may be in the lower part of the top 10, I am hoping it will sustain itself and last for a few weeks in the top 10, which would represent the spread of word of mouth for the movie. I hope *crosses fingers*.

Another site to keep track of though is http://www.rottentomatoes.com , which will have the rankings of rentals although I don't know when it will be updated. I just have to say I just noticed that the Serenity DVD is in the spotlight on the front page, which is gorram shiny.

kurya | December 27, 23:40 CET

All of the rental stores in my town are checked out. I know as soon as a copy comes in at work, somebody rents it right away! We've also sold a fair amount as well. I put the remaining sale copies on the front counter under employee picks.

faeryflower | December 28, 00:03 CET

In the meanwhile, until official number will be published, here is how
Serenity is doing according to various online outlets:

Amazon: I guess it is not real news to anyone Serenity is #1 for 8
days in Amazon, and Firefly is #3.
Walmart: List is probably not updated for this week, as Firefly is at #12, yet
Serenity is nowever on the list.
Overstock.com: Firefly at #1, and Serenity is #2
DVDPacific: Serenity at #3
Barnes&Noble: Serenity at #3, Firefly #10
CDUniverse: Serenity #1
DVD-Empire: Serenity #1
3deers.com: Serenity #1
Lasercorder: probably not updated (Serenity not yet on the list)

Looks good, doesn't it?

sela | December 28, 00:05 CET

I've added Canadian to the subject line to keep things running smoothly.

Simon | December 28, 00:07 CET

Slightly off-topic, but the Virgin Megastore in Times Square in NYC just had Serenity playing on most of the screens in the store. Wherever there was sound, there were little packets of people standing around watching.

[ edited by RambleOn623 on 2005-12-27 22:33 ]

RambleOn623 | December 28, 00:33 CET

That's cool, Ramble. I can see myself just obstructing people's path watching the gorram movie.

Mack | December 28, 01:33 CET

Sure looks good to me ,sela. Couldn't help smiling while reading that. Maybe not official figures, but none the less...
*dances with joy*
Couldn't help myself, was only planning on watching one particular scene on the DVD today, and ended up watching the whole movie. Can't get enough of those outtakes either.
Here's hoping we top the charts all over the place!!!
Great to see that so many are watching the series as well to get the whole backstory of the BDM. Not that it wasn't easy to follow anyway..

joH40 | December 28, 02:26 CET

Just to add to sela's previous post a few places that weren't covered, and spread a little more happiness, the news is good here as well.

All info below refers to widescreen

Sam Goody.com-Serenty is #1 and has sold out, available for backorder only!
www.gohastings.com-Serenity is sold out here too!
Buy.com-Serenity #6, Firefly #23
Tower Records.com-Serenity #14
dvd-plus.com-Serenity #2
deepdiscount DVD-Can't find a bestseller list, but Serenity is the most searched title.
www.imdb.com Serenity #3 on the Hot DVD's list, behind the 2 versions of March of the Penguins, making it the #2 film on there.

Even locally the numbers of discs on the shelves have dwindled massively in the past week. This seems to have a lot more momentum on DVD than it did in theaters (no surprise), and it's obviously fueling sales of Firefly, and vice versa, creating new fans in the process.

djalpine | December 28, 02:49 CET

My small town only has 2 video rental stores. One has 3 copies of Serenity, the other has 7. I was surprised and glad to find out that Serenity is one of their hottest rental properties at the moment. Neither store will do holds and Serenity has spent very little time on their shelves. People seem to be snatching it up as soon as it gets returned.
*yes, I grilled the clerks for info :)*

supersymetry | December 28, 03:23 CET

I'm very surprised to see Serenity doing so well in terms of rentals- I expected that most Firefly-fans would buy the DVD of Serenity, and that very few others would be interested at all. Maybe word of mouth did really have a big impact (which it didn't during Serenity's run in theaters), and now a lot of people who didn't catch Serenity in theaters are renting it.

vampire dan | December 28, 03:53 CET

Good job sleuth supersymetry, hehehe. You should grill them to buy more copies of the dvd to have for rental. hehehe. At the video store near my house, there were only 3-4 dvds (as opposed to 7-8 of the other big hits). But it seemed to be out, so its a good thing, I felt like asking them to get more copies lol.

kurya | December 28, 03:54 CET

Since I can't edit my own entry yet, I wanted to add, that we should be careful in being overly optimistic. I remember the immense optimisim in the first week when Serenity was in theatres, and then, well lets not go there, but it seemed we hyped ourselves too much. I just don't want the same thing to happen, so lets just be cautiously opimistic. We should find out tomorrow(or day after) what the dvd sales and what the rental sales are like(instead of depending on online site rankings or anecdotes), and if Serenity is in the top 10(hopefully top 5.... but might not happen), then I will be ecstatic. But more importantly, the DVD should remain in the top 10 for a while.

kurya | December 28, 03:58 CET

...Gee, I remember doom and gloom from Saturday of opening weekend on.

I know all the people I tried to get to go see it kept saying they don't go to movies, they wait for the DVD. That is why I was so upset with the cover. If the mainstream audiences were waiting for the DVD, I didn't want the cover to turn them off.

newcj | December 28, 04:12 CET

Just thought everyone would like to hear this. I received an email from someone in the marketing dept. at Universal. And I quote "And speaking of
impressive, the DVD sales for Serenity were amazing!"

So it looks like Universal is very happy with the first week's sales.

danregal | December 28, 04:25 CET

Well I know I'm not the only one but I hope they're 'sequel' happy. Just got my DVD in the mail and it's so great to finally get my hands on it and see all the extras.

BamSaidTheLady | December 28, 04:35 CET

Good good, Dan. If it makes the top 3 in the DVD charts I'll need to eat my hat about the cover art.

gossi | December 28, 04:36 CET

gossi, here's a later part of the email.

"What a great vindication of how excellent a movie it actually is. Even with that questionable cover art"

No need to eat your hat, unless it's gonna taste good. Looks like there's at least one person at Universal who is on our side about the cover.

danregal | December 28, 04:50 CET

Just because the movie and the word of mouth make the DVD successful, (my mouth to God's ears) does not mean we were wrong about the cover art.

newcj | December 28, 04:59 CET

Really, the DVD Rentals chart will tell you about how the cover art effects things. Fans will buy the DVD - average joes will pick it up during renting usually.

gossi | December 28, 05:05 CET

Ah, but the are the average joes picking it up because of the cover art or in spite of it and because of word of mouth?

newcj | December 28, 05:14 CET

I do think that the cover art is actually not as bad for selling the movie as a lot of people thought it was. Some people said that the cover art made Serenity look like any other sci-fi movie, but wouldn't that help Serenity sell? People were alienated from Serenity by the fact that it came from a cult TV show, so by seeing that it's just like all the sci-fi movies out there, they're more likely to rent it (of course then they'll see that it is a very unique movie).

Just curious, danregal, why was this person from Universal's marketing department e-mailing you?

vampire dan | December 28, 05:53 CET

Even if a sequel isn't green-lighted, I'm just glad that the BDM is getting the attention it deserves.

MySerenity | December 28, 06:33 CET

I was in my local Blockbuster over the weekend and they had a full row of Serenity DVDs in the New Release section. They were all rented out on Friday when I picked up some rentals and were still all rented out on Sunday night when I returned my movie rentals.

haven | December 28, 07:17 CET

I do think it's more than just the Browncoats buying up copies of Serenity. Otherwise, why would "Firefly" be moving up the charts just as quickly? It seems "regular folk" are buying (or renting) the movie, and then they're running out to purchase the series. Either way this is great news. The word is going forth, and people are catching the signal. I'm crossing my fingers for a sequel but if nothing else, the DVD's are selling, and they're selling well. How weird is that?

This *has* to be part of TV history somehow, don't you think? I mean, how often does a half-season, mostly canceled TV show bounce back into best-selling status three years later? Me, I can't wait to read my World Almanac in a few years and find "Firefly" and Serenity listed somewhere among the record breakers...

nina | December 28, 08:11 CET

When I was at Wal-mart buying gifts (nothing horrible, I swear) I saw a couple guys pick up the Full Screen version of Serenity and flip it over (since I think Wal-mart only had the Full Screen version). I couldn't resist-- I went over there and told them it was a great movie, and that they should buy it. I really have no clue whether or not they did, but it just warmed my heart to see someone picking it up.

Unfortunately, I don't think it's been selling very well around here, although I could be wrong, but the shelves are always full of them. Not to mention the Target around here decided to put their Serenity display behind a pole. That's a WONDERFUL way to sell things, Target, just wonderful. I had an urge to move it, but I did not.

Oh and, first post. Go me.

VeryVeryCrowded | December 28, 08:36 CET

Oh and, first post. Go me.
lol, VeryVeryCrowded!

When people like danregal and gossi, who seem lots more "in the know" about business matters than most of us (yeah, why was danregal getting e-mail from 'Versal?) are starting to get excited...it's exciting! ;-)

My local Target (microscopic mountain town) had sold out the widescreen and just a few fullscreen left. :-)

billz | December 28, 09:30 CET

Danregal is the officialish Southern California browncoat contact with some peoples at Universal (and an all around great guy). If he says it, it is true. :)

IrrationaliTV | December 28, 09:43 CET

Oh -- shiny! Thanks for the clarification, TamaraC!

Then...it's true, it's true, woooo! :-)

billz | December 28, 10:26 CET

Continuing on the store theme, but in Toronto. At the flagship HMV downtown, Serenity is front and centre, eye height, smack in the centre of the entrance display, in multiple rows, full screen and wide. Could be a Browncoat or two who work there, maybe.

Drifter | December 28, 10:57 CET

It was shiny to see a nice display (with the unfortunate cover art... but what can ya do?) in Best Buy.

Also, how cool is it that Amazon has now had Serenity in the number 1 spot for TEN DAYS running?

Hope that all this is not only impressing Universal, but *sequel* impressing Universal. ;)

AnotherFireflyfan | December 28, 15:56 CET

In Northern NJ I had to go searching in the stores I was in. No displays no marketing, just like for the theatrical showing. I have not been in a rental store. I have a lot of running around to do today, maybe I'll see what is going on in the local rental stores while I am at it.

Does anybody know, historically, is Northern NJ particularly anti-SF, cause nobody seems to be noticing Serenity. I still can't believe that there were no posters up at the theaters where it was playing, when it was playing.

newcj | December 28, 18:07 CET

I'm not surprised it's renting and selling so well. I can list at least 10 people I personally know who only ever saw the series on Sci-Fi and were waiting for it to end before going to the theater (which it didn't end until November), so by then the movie wasn't in the theater. They're all renting it (or trying to pry my copy from me).

I've loaned the series to 3 coworkers now, 2 of which have then gone out and gotten a copy for themselves, and the 3rd would have if not for having to spend the money on more important things, like a sick baby.

Then you've got my brother, who got a copy of Serenity for himself and one for my dad -- so 3 out of the 4 people in my family own a copy!!

[ edited by WilliamTheBloody on 2005-12-28 17:11 ]

[ edited by WilliamTheBloody on 2005-12-28 17:11 ]

WilliamTheBloody | December 28, 19:10 CET

At the Hollywood Video site Serenity is the #1 online DVD sales and Firefly is #2 in DVD sales. Serenity is also the #1 seller at the Suncoast Video site, it is actually sold out and is currently on backorder for them. Also at Suncoast if you order anything online that comes to $30 you get an extra 10% off (with code ASH10 - only on new movies).

RavenU | December 28, 20:36 CET

Thanks Tamara, for the response and the compliment :)

In this case, I was letting them know that items they donated helped raise over $2000 at our food drive during Flanvention.

And for sightings in stores. The Suncoast in my local mall had a full size Serenity poster at the entrance. And B Dalton had about 15 copies of the novelization in front of the store on the best sellers rack.

danregal | December 28, 22:33 CET

Yeah, people have been gifting the DVD to each other like crazy. I gave Firefly DVDs to one person who received Serenity from another person: Crazy. And my close bud got the DVD from his cousins, only it's the fullscreen version. Watching it is disconcerting -- the River fighting scenes are cut to shreds, no longer elegant and lovely extended dance-like sequences.

dottikin | December 28, 23:06 CET

December 27 2005