A few weeks ago, Nathan Fillion mentioned that he’d buy the rights to the late, great, Firefly and start filming new episodes if he won the lottery. Subsequently, a few (hundred thousand) intrepid fans did their best to make that a reality, but www.helpnathanbuyfirefly.com has shut down after series creator Joss Whedon’s sister-in-law publicly denounced the site on Twitter.
Maurissa Tancharoen is also a writer for such Whedon projects as Dollhouse and Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. This week she became a footnote in the colorful history of Firefly as well: after buzz about the fan movement reached a fever pitch, she sent out this Twitter message:
Guys, no one in the Whedonverse is in support of www.helpnathanbuyfirefly.com. Please save your money!
Tancharoen later amended her statement with a longer message, stating that there were no hard feelings from the Whedon clan, but Joss and Co. weren’t comfortable with fans trying to take direct control of the Firefly rights, and even less with them collecting real money to do so. After the news broke, the organizers put a short message on Facebook announcing an official end to their efforts.
It should be noted that the site never took any collections, merely pledges. While they fell short of anything like the $300 million that Fillion first joked about, the pledges were still impressive. Roughly 12,000 fans pledged just over a million US dollars, with an average pledge of $85. ‘Help Nathan Buy Firefly’s Facebook page has 113,000 fans.
While I’d love to see Firefly on the air again as much as the next Browncoat, the movement had about a snowball’s chance in a Capissen 38 engine. Fox was never under any obligation to sell the rights to Firefly – legitimately or not – and on the off chance that they saw millions of dollars worth of fan interest, they’d be much more likely to try a ham-fisted reboot themselves. Then there’s commitments from the actors: Nathan Fillion, Morena Baccarin, Adam Baldwin and Summer Glau (nevermind) all have steady gigs on other shows, to say nothing of Whedon himself, who’s knee-deep in superheroes right now writing and directing The Avengers. Let’s face it: it’s coming up on ten years since the series was cancelled, and Serenity was a fitting, if bittersweet, end to the franchise.
It was fun while it lasted, folks. The ‘Help Nathan Buy Firefly’ organizers accomplished a lot in a short time, bringing a bunch of people some fanservice on Facebook and generating buzz for worthy projects like Child’s Play, Whedon’s equality charity Can’t Stop the Serenity and fan movie Browncoats: Redemption. If nothing else, this incident showed how deeply ‘the little TV show that couldn’t’ has embedded itself in the hearts and minds of geeks everywhere.
Don’t forget, Science Channel is currently rebroadcasting all fourteen episodes of Firefly Sunday nights at 10 PM – and Captain Mal himself seems to be dropping Firefly and Serenity references every other week on Castle.
‘Dexter’ Season 8 Trailer: The Hunt Begins – How Will it End? 
‘Game of Thrones’ to End in Season 7? 
‘Pacific Rim’ Featurette Explores ‘Drift Space’; First TV Spot Offers More Action 
‘Prometheus 2′ Casting Rumor – Is the Sequel Moving Forward? 
Shows how powerful people can be when they want to get what they want. Love the internet.
Except people aren’t powerful. This is a small and meaningless thing compared to the rest of the world and the stupid and awful things that go on. We can’t function together to make the world the way it should be. Something that should be simple is complicated by disinformation from people who want to control others. Humanity is lost.
I can’t help but feel the news should have come officially from Whedon himself in a private message rather than blurted out (somewhat insensitively) by his sister-in-law. Be that as it may, it doesn’t change the fact Firefly is by far a much better show than the vomit showing up on TV programming today.
Once a Browncoat, always a Browncoat. They can’t that that away.
The Avengers will never come about. Whedon is using that as a phoney prop to keep from actually having to make a statement on Firefly. Basically he is done with the series but yet he doesn’t want to lose all that potential money he can make hocking merchandise for the next 10 years.
you might have a point there
How do you feel now that you know The Avengers is coming?
Sad , but it would have only led to dissapointment in the end .
Joss has gone over to the Blue Side.
Aleric,The Avengers begins shooting very soon and it will spawn many sequels if all goes well.
Gary have you seen any test footage or even a list of the actors appearing in the movie?
I know you posted 8 months ago, so you probably know by now, but yeah, there’s a cast list and everything, now… The first official trailer aired in May after the screening of Captain America.
so what. there’s plenty of superhero movies out there. There is only one firefly. Super hero movies largely follow the comic storyline anyway. Avengers is another super hero movie, but Firefly is…. It’s firefly
Well isn’t that a kick in the nuts from Joss. Wow
Yeah Ants, my manhood is hurting right now. Thanks Joss, and thought I was your favorite firefly stalked/fan!
Aleric ,actually I was present at The San Diego Comic Con when the cast came out onstage.
And footage of the cast onstage is ALL OVER the internet.
You are kidding yourself if you think this movie isnt going to happen.
I didnt say the movie wouldn’t come about but that Whedon wouldnt be the one directing it.
This article mentions several of the projects that the HNBF organizers helped with, but you havent mentioned Nathan Fillion’s project, Kids Need To Read. Kids Need to Read (http://www.kidsneedtoread.com) seemed to be the charity that the HNBF organizers were pushing the most. I also do not recall them making mention of Child’s Play.
I do not care how it is done. Just give a new Firefly film at the least.
Who am I kidding? I want the series to kick off again. With the same crew except those who died in Serenity.
Would have been better if Whedon had made a statement himself. I know, I know, he’s a busy man. But how long does it take to shoot an email off to a reporter? He did it regarding the BUffy movie. And frankly, I think the sister-in-law bungled the whole thing. Her first tweet was off-putting and easily misunderstood; subsequent tweets were defensive and whiney. I’m sorry she’s afraid of the internet, but maybe she’ll decline any further requests to be the Whedonverse spokesperson. Seems like bad PR to me. I do applaud the guys at Help Nathan Buy FIrefly. They did a good job and didn’t stoop to criticizing Fillion, Whedon, et al., for alienating fans. I’m not, however, so this is my two cents. I guess I’m just an okay man.
You’re right. They could’ve handled that a lot better.
@Peter – You’re alright. Heh.
Totally agree.
Alleric, since he is scouting for locations right now,I think that you are wrong about that.
oops, sorry about that misspeling of your name, Aleric .
I still think Whedon is directing TheAvengers though.
How close minded can Fox be? They waste millions on Pilot shows and marketing and focus group on shows that are a gamble that WILL NEVER BE PICKED UP and yet they are sitting ON A GUARANTEED SURE THING GOLD MINE and all they do is NOTHING. FANS are willing to PUT THEIR OWN MONEY and still nothing. Little brain closed minded executives. Here, “here’s gold, diamonds and rubies at your feet.” “No, I’m going to get a flashlight, put blinders on and see if I can find diamonds by putting rocks on my ears.” To borrow a line from another successful sci-fi great “You will pay for your lack of vision.”
I love Firefly and would love to see it return to the big or small screen. The fact of the matter is that Serenity didn’t do very well at the box office – it actually did better as a DVD. No profit, no product.
Fox’double standard:
Firefly.
Fringe.
I read the twitter and the followup from the sis-in-law and I don’t think “denounce” is the proper term. They were obviously nervous about the pledges and were distancing themselves.
The article’s wrong. The Facebook page has not shut down – we’re still going strong!
Simple yet elegant solution: someone (smarter than I) needs to form a group with a substantial amount of people to contact Fox & their sponsors (commercials) & inform them of boycotting their products if Fox doesnt relight Firefly. Money talks. Pure & simple. The only questions are- How bad do we want it back? Are there enough of us to make their wallets nervous?
You cant force Fox to bring the show back or greenlight a sequel to Serenity.
True but Fox canceled Family Guy in it’s first season as well.
“…that there were no hard feelings from the Whedon clan…”
They miss the point (or you do), there are hard feelings, but that is from the (growing) group of people who want to buy free the rights to Firefly – and they dislike the “whedon clan” now – fine, if none of them can be bothered to take part then don’t, but shut up and stay out of it whilst a part of fandom work for it.
Sorry to be late on the bandwagon here, but…
You really are hurt that Joss Whedon has no interest in making more episodes of the show he created? And want him to stay out of it while the hardcore fans uselessly chase their fantasy?
Wow. Fanboys take the fun out of fun things.
You obviously missed the point. It’s not that no one wanted Whedon involved, it was that they weren’t getting any network interest for the show. When a very passionate and organized group of fans came up with a no risk, innovative idea on how to get network support for the show, the sister-in-law (whoever the heck she is) mouthed off to fans. Poor way to handle the situation.
I would act ignorant and tell you about yourself but i’ll just say…. Fu%& you crab
Angry fanboys take the fun out of fun things. Just sayin’.
Everything on TV is based on viewer interest. Regardless of the logistics of the fan based financial support what it demonstrates is there is a big fan base and as a result of this push some media buzz. If someone did a Firefly reboot you can bet there would be an immediate and sizeable browncoat fanbase, but more importantly the buzz Firefly was missing it’s first time around. It would do better.
And seriously @Michael Crider you’re going to say it “never” will happen? Last time I checked we just had a movie about Red Riding Hood lmao, Karate Kid got remade, Red Dawn on the way, the “V” TV series, etc etc. If anything is certain it’s never say never about what will or won’t be made in Hollywood.
I didn’t say it will “never” happen. I pointed out the unlikelihood of it happening, mostly because Fox has no motivation to sell. I’d love to see somebody (well, the right somebody) try.
lol you’re as bad as I am about keeping up on communication! I just realized I had messages on facebook from last year haha
fair enough. you did not say never. snowball’s chance is not never so I stand corrected. =) Anyway we all want it to happen so we can always hope. I’d like to see a Tron series on tv. I know Disney is doing the animated one, but anyway totally off topic random idea.
How about you sell the idea to Netflix?
Just want to say that the demographics for Firefly fans are not just geeks and scifi fans. I think Fox should pay attention to their audiences. I am not a scifi fan, I never watched Star Trek, I saw the first Star Wars and that’s about it. I am a 51 year old affluent part time worker who plays tennis obsessively . . . doesn’t quite fit the fan base. I think there is many more of us out there. I love Firefly and can’t believe it was one year and a movie. I guess 10 years is too long to revive a show, but my next question, who is the idiot network executive that made the asinine decision to cancel? There you have it, a non scifi view of FireFly.
Personally I hate most sci-fi shows. I was one of those guys who talked about people who watched them alot. They were just rediculous to me. Until I saw it. The day I saw it I knew that everything had changed. I knew i’d be a fan of at least one sci-fi show forever. I was late coming to the show. I only saw it in 2006, and i’ve been a diehard fan ever since. I’ve been completely boycotting Fox I learned how unjustly they cancelled the show. I hope more people catch on and express their displeasure like I have.
Burn the land and boil the sea. You cant take the sky from me…. I hate u fox
Woah, a bit late on this one. I just watched the series and serenity for the first time. While I was watching it I tweeted the theme song. I got a huge response of people saying “YOU WATCHED FIREFLY!”. This didn’t come as a shock to me since I was in love with the series after episode 1. Yet, what did surprise me is who said it. I had some geeks, a jock, a girl and an engineer all respond within an hour. Basically, what im trying to say here is, the fan base isn’t all nerds and sci-fi fans.
Honestly, I would love for the show to be continued, yet firefly is very delicate. It would take every actor which I dont think is possible (due to age, interest and commitments to other shows) . Also, I think they shot themselves in the foot with Serenity. Killed off two of the actors (Shepard’s was the worse one because we all wanted to know what his real story was),they more or less fixed/ figured out river (the voices stopped), and they solved the reaver plot.. if not killing post of them in the process.
Firefly will always be from this moment on my favorite tv show and I plan on directing all my anger at fox to cope with its ending.
Ps. Im sure there is a special place in hell reserved for the fox executives dont worry guys!!!
they could do a post series – pre serenity movie- movie. that could fill in alot of blanks & have all original cast. sorry i’m dreaming.it’ll probly never happen. fox f@&$ed that up. they couldnt even play the pilot or episodes in the right order. 10 years is not too long to revive a show, look at battlestar galictica,(different cast tho) huge success!
If they were to reboot the series I’d say that they should disregard serenity all together, lets face it wasn’t really in the spirit of the show, Mal was too angry and rash, River more fragmented than when the show started, Simon was much more commanding than he should have been, Inara was seamed a lot more like the damsel in distress and Wash seamed much more childish. So if they remake firefly I’d say to hell with the movie.