Whedon again says no Firefly
by Doc on Jan.03, 2006, under General News
Maybe if he just gave a straight answer, there would be less confusion – Joss Whedon apparently said in an interview with USA Today (I was unable to find an article on usatoday.com) “We’ll never make Firefly again.” But then he says that he’d like to “tell more stories of this universe and to hang out with these people.” Well, if its a movie, or another TV series, in the same universe with the same characters, isn’t it in in some sense Firefly?
January 3rd, 2006 on 11:12 pm
Maybe if people learned to read…
It’s very, very simple. I can’t believe that people are having such a hard time understanding this. Whedon’s giving a very straight answer.
Firefly was a specific run of a television series (whose rights happen to be partially owned by Fox TV), with a specific set of story arcs and a specific cast of characters. As Whedon says in the article: just as Serenity was different from Firefly, anything else that’s done in that universe will also be different from Firefly – even a new television series would be structured around another arc, since the Firefly arcs were folded into Serenity and the characters moved to a point well beyond where Firefly would have taken them.
Think of Firefly in this case as Star Trek: The Next Generation… just because ST:TNG ended as a TV series didn’t mean that more movies and television shows in the same universe wouldn’t be made.
January 4th, 2006 on 12:52 am
it will always be Firefly
[Don’t you hate it when you compose a nice long email/article, etc. only to have your toddler reach over and hit the Escape key?]
Josh can call his movies/shows anything he wants, right up until the suits decide otherwise.
The studio is in charge. I have no doubt that they will look and say “Where were all your fans when Serenity came out? You should have called it Firefly: The Movie…” Even the media is getting caught in this – they are the ones that keep saying “No more Firefly”, but that’s not really what he’s saying.
I think he was lucky to be able to call the movie Serenity in the first place. That would have been a more appropriate name for the series. After all, “Firefly” was just the type of ship. “Serenity” had far more meaning. That would be like calling Enterprise “Star Ship” or “Cruiser”.
And as for Star Trek, every production bore “Star Trek” in the name so there was no ambiguity – except for Enterprise. Then the suits figured out the cause of all the shows faults and renamed it to Star Trek: Enterprise…(sarcasm intended)
January 4th, 2006 on 6:35 am
It can never again be Firefly
Wrong. Joss can not call it whatever he likes. One more time…. it could not be named Firefly: The Movie. 20th Century Fox owns the rights to the name Firefly (as well as the television use of those characters and settings for the next several years) and Universal Pictures and Barry Mendel Productions, who funded Serenity (each in conjunction with Mutant Enemy, who owned all other uses of those characters and settings), have the separate rights to Serenity. Insisting that more stories be called Firefly is insisting that they not be made, because Fox will not allow more Firefly to be made.
There’s a very good reason that the word “Firefly” isn’t used in promoting Serenity and only appears once in the film.
This isn’t just splitting hairs – it’s very important that these stories not be tied to the word “Firefly.” Once you buy that clue, Whedon’s statements are perfectly clear.
January 4th, 2006 on 12:53 pm
Re:It can never again be Firefly
Puzzling if that’s true – but why doesn’t he just say that?
If its true, it has to be one of the strangest arrangements I’ve ever heard of, where he owns the situation and characters, but not the name.
January 5th, 2006 on 6:05 pm
Re:It can never again be Firefly
That kind of thing’s fairly common, actually. Situation and characters are protected by copyright, which is created by the act of writing and isn’t usually assigned to the publisher (ie Fox in this case). Titles are trademarks and are (more or less) created by the act of marketing, hence is owned by Fox here.
I’m actually amazed he could use the title “Serenity”, as it was also the title of the pilot of the series. Presumably it was never really marketed using that title, though.
January 11th, 2006 on 5:08 pm
Re:it will always be Firefly
“Joss”, not “Josh”.