Serenity on the ScFiWire
The SciFiWire just posted this article on Serenity:
Serenity Jumps From TV
Joss Whedon, who wrote and directed the upcoming SF movie Serenity, told SCI FI Wire that it's been a challenge adapting his low-rated Fox TV series Firefly for the big screen. "It's incredibly hard, you know, building a story that doesn't repeat or contradict what we've already done, that satisfies the fans, and yet is really made for people who have never seen the show," Whedon said in an interview on the film's set at Universal Studios in Los Angeles last August. "[It's] incredibly tricky. There's pitfalls everywhere."
Serenity, set 500 years in the future, picks up the story of the intrepid crew of the Firefly-class transport ship Serenity. Fox canceled Firefly in the middle of its first season, but fan enthusiasm for the show and its subsequent DVD release persuaded Universal Pictures to green-light a movie adaptation. "It's the hardest story I've ever had to structure," Whedon said. But, he added, "once I get writing these people, it's the easiest thing in the world, because I know them so well. The other thing is, a TV show is built around slow development of character. A movie ... is built around momentum. They're very different things. So ... you have to let some things drop, and you have to speed some things up, and you have to sort of know which ones are which."
Serenity also marks longtime TV veteran Whedon's feature-film directorial debut. Whedon has been critical in the past about how his movie scripts for such films as Alien: Resurrection and the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie have been realized. "After Alien: Resurrection I said the next person who ruins one of my scripts is going to be me," he said, with tongue in cheek. "And I think I'm doing a fine job. Actually, I think that the director on occasion could use a little more imagination and the writer could have shut up occasionally. We fight, but we're still getting along better than I usually do."
Seriously, Whedon said, "It's been great. ... Unlike TV, I have the time to really explore what it is I'm doing and to go back and reassess every day. But the piece is so fluid, because it's a domino effect. Every time you shoot a scene, it affects 50 other scenes. It's not like you have eight days and you know exactly what you need, and you're out and you go on to the next one. It's constantly shifting. Hopefully not so much that it doesn't know where it's going." Serenity, which is in post-production, opens April 22, 2005. Universal Pictures is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Serenity Jumps From TV
Joss Whedon, who wrote and directed the upcoming SF movie Serenity, told SCI FI Wire that it's been a challenge adapting his low-rated Fox TV series Firefly for the big screen. "It's incredibly hard, you know, building a story that doesn't repeat or contradict what we've already done, that satisfies the fans, and yet is really made for people who have never seen the show," Whedon said in an interview on the film's set at Universal Studios in Los Angeles last August. "[It's] incredibly tricky. There's pitfalls everywhere."
Serenity, set 500 years in the future, picks up the story of the intrepid crew of the Firefly-class transport ship Serenity. Fox canceled Firefly in the middle of its first season, but fan enthusiasm for the show and its subsequent DVD release persuaded Universal Pictures to green-light a movie adaptation. "It's the hardest story I've ever had to structure," Whedon said. But, he added, "once I get writing these people, it's the easiest thing in the world, because I know them so well. The other thing is, a TV show is built around slow development of character. A movie ... is built around momentum. They're very different things. So ... you have to let some things drop, and you have to speed some things up, and you have to sort of know which ones are which."
Serenity also marks longtime TV veteran Whedon's feature-film directorial debut. Whedon has been critical in the past about how his movie scripts for such films as Alien: Resurrection and the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie have been realized. "After Alien: Resurrection I said the next person who ruins one of my scripts is going to be me," he said, with tongue in cheek. "And I think I'm doing a fine job. Actually, I think that the director on occasion could use a little more imagination and the writer could have shut up occasionally. We fight, but we're still getting along better than I usually do."
Seriously, Whedon said, "It's been great. ... Unlike TV, I have the time to really explore what it is I'm doing and to go back and reassess every day. But the piece is so fluid, because it's a domino effect. Every time you shoot a scene, it affects 50 other scenes. It's not like you have eight days and you know exactly what you need, and you're out and you go on to the next one. It's constantly shifting. Hopefully not so much that it doesn't know where it's going." Serenity, which is in post-production, opens April 22, 2005. Universal Pictures is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.