Honestly, I thought it would fade away.
On February 17, during an interview with Entertainment Weekly about Firefly being shown on the Science Channel, Nathan Fillion said this:
“If I got $300 million from the California Lottery, the first thing I would do is buy the rights to Firefly, make it on my own, and distribute it on the Internet.”
Just the sort of thing to make fans sit up and cheer. And then, most of us normally might buy a t-shirt or two and then go back to watching the shows on DVD. I didn’t bother blogging about it at the time because I figured by the time I did, it would be gone already.
Except that someone set up a website, helpnathanbuyfirefly.com, which was funny, and began talking about pledges to raise money to actually buy the gorram rights to Firefly from 20th Century Fox, which maybe wasn’t.
And other Firefly alums said publicly that they’d be onboard if the chance arose. And author Patrick Rothfuss openly pledged book profits to the cause. And the Help Nathan Buy Firefly Facebook page has over 100,000 members already.
Now, I have been involved in numerous fan campaigns, including some pretty far-fetched ones (I even started one once). But this one seems off to me, for lotsa reasons.
First and foremost is that I can’t see the studio selling the rights in the first place. The example that keeps getting brought up is the Terminator franchise, the rights for which recently sold for just $30 million, far short of the $300 million number Fillion tossed out there.
Only, the Terminator franchise has been bounced around through several owners, most of whom went through some form of bankruptcy that necessitated the sale. The last owners, the Halycon Company, filed for Chapter 11 and auctioned off the rights for under half of what they were hoping for. This is quite a bit different expecting a successful studio to sell a property that still generates revenue for itself.
20th Century Fox makes money from Firefly and Serenity. DVD sales, syndication, and licensing rights from QMx and Titan Books and Dark Horse Comics and Ripple Junction and more. They have no need or reason to sell.
Second, and more disturbing to me, the people behind the movement remain anonymous.
I have no reason to think this movement is anything besides exuberant fans reacting the way Browncoats have many times before. We hear the clarion call and we respond, with numbers and money and assistance and everything we can throw at it. It’s the Browncoats biggest strength: we help each other. We’ve seen it time and again with the Can’t Stop the Serenity fundraising, the work and money for Equality Now and Kids Need to Read and the Dyslexia Foundation and the Al Wooten Jr. Heritage Center and the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation and more. But in every case we know who’s holding the money. We don’t, here.
Granted, no money has been requested yet, only pledges, which they stress are not legally binding. But at some point money has to change hands if this project is to move forward, and there needs to be publicly accountable, reachable people behind the site before dollar one goes anywhere.
Frankly I have to wonder at the anonymity. If it’s fronted by well-known fans or even people connected to the show it would only add legitimacy to the project and support would rise up even faster. Why not come out? If you’re going to be anonymous at least tell us what you’re protecting. Instead this just makes people suspicious, and rightfully so. Too many fan movements like this have raised money with shaky business practices before for fans to blithely send off their savings.
Their site says that “If we can’t raise enough money, or if we can’t acquire the rights we’re after, we return the remaining funds.” To whom? Who decides?
Third, it’s been tried before. As gossi pointed out at whedonesque, there’s been FireflySeason2.com, MySerenitySequel.com (which operated on pretty much the same business plan as HelpNathanBuyFirefly.com, by the way), browncoatsriseagain.com, Operation Blue Hands, Operation Full Burn, and more. None went very far, and a few were decidedly odd.
Fourth, even assuming the rights could be bought, would Joss and Co. be happy about it?
Personally I think if Joss thought this could be done successfully he would have done it himself already. The fact that he has not yet publicly said anything, despite all the recent attention it’s been getting, speaks volumes. And he does have this little thing called the Avengers movie to concentrate on for the next year or so, with possibly more work lined up already. Nathan, despite his words, has a very successful TV show that takes a lot of his time. Adam Baldwin is on Chuck, Morena Baccarin is tied up with V.
Near and dear to his heart as it is, does Joss want to continue with Firefly? He got to create Serenity, and while there are surely more stories to tell in the ‘verse it would still be, in some ways, going backward for him. What does Joss want to do?
And — even assuming we had the rights and the cast and crew made time somehow (which is possible, as they’ve all expressed an interest in returning at one time or another) — who controls it? The HNBF site says that everyone involved would, and I can’t see any creative staff wanting to work for 100,000 bosses. Would Joss have total creative freedom? What if the ratings slip? Would the HNBF board start sending notes?
Fifth: what would we want, anyway?
Would the version pick up where “Firefly” left off? Or after the movie? Would there be Wash? Or would we just build up a heap of money and give it to Joss, then sit back and wait for whatever he comes up with? You guys fight that out and get back to me.
Sixth, and pretty important: Nathan said not to. “It’s beautiful to dream of more Firefly, but PLEASE DON’T SEND ANY MONEY. Just keep being great Browncoats, which you are!” He repeated it again in his interview on the Nerdist podcast and in an interview with Backstage where he stressed again that this was his dream if he won the lottery, not a request for people to invest. “But please, don’t send money to a website.”
The HNBF site seems to be (finally) responding to that by changing their name to Unstoppable Signals.
To their credit, they have repeatedly stated that no money is being accepted, that they have no guarantee this is possible, that they have no guarantee that Joss or Nathan or anyone else would be interested even if it were possible.
I honor the attempt, and the desire. Few people would like more stories from the ‘verse as me, and I’d love to be a part of making that happen. But so far I have to say I’m still skeptical, and will remain so until a) all the names behind the movement are made known, b) some sort of business plan with transparent accountability is launched, and c) Joss acknowledges it himself.
Damn. Well if you didn’t just beat me to the punch…
I’m working on a blog post on this exact topic on my site! I’ll be examining the fifth point you made – what would even happen in a new “version” of Firefly? (to be posted later on today once I gather some more ideas!)
I’m definitely on your side in this #hnbf issue. The Captain said no; we do what the Captain says. And until we know what Mr. Whedon Himself says about it, there’s really nothing that can – or should – be done.
Looks like the whole thing has been CANEX’d courtesy of a tweet from Joss’ sister-in-law. Cannot say as though I am surprised, or disappointed.