Ayn Rand fans who have enjoyed the TV series Firefly — and there are a lot of you — may be excited to learn that it the new full-length Firefly movie, titled Serenity, will be available for preview in select cities on May 5th. That’s a full four months before the scheduled public release of the film.
The Serenity trailer was released just yesterday. (It looks very, very good.)
If you’ve not yet discovered Firefly, be sure and read Monica White’s Atlasphere review “The Ascendance of Firefly” from last fall. Better still, buy the Firefly DVDs and see for yourself.
Here is the actual sneak preview announcement from Firefly Creator Joss Whedon, which was recently posted in the Browncoats message board:
Well.
It gets better.
As thus: The movie is very nearly finished. You’ve seen many pretty images in the trailer. But I’ve still got work to do and you’ve still got months before you can see it.
Unless.
And, no, I’m not talking Australia (but Hi, Australia! anyway), I’m talking here in the more-or-less-United States, a one time multi-city Browncoat sneak event. Thursday, May 5th at 10:00 pm, the movie (Serenity! Pay attention! Jeez.) will be playing at exactly 10 theaters in 10 cities across the country. You (or possibly someone much like you) (or possibly a robot EXACTLY like you, but with better manners and sonic arm-lasers, sent to take your place) will be able to buy a ticket to see Serenity months in advance. Not just the bitty trailer with not enough Kaylee and Book, but the whole film, in its extremely almost completed state.
You probably have some questions. How is this possible? What cities exactly will it be in? What are these changes my body is going through? All valid. It’s possible because some clown put a bunch of Universal execs in a theater full of Browncoats and dude, they came out SWEATING, they never seen energy like that. They loved it, and even though they were already wicked supportive of the movie (see: earlier posts re: we’re making the movie) they simply weren’t ready for you guys. When I whinged on about pushing the date and everyone here was posting about “what do we do till September”, they agreed to let me sneak it out.
Maybe they thought it was a fluke. Maybe they wanna see if people really do care about the flick. Or maybe they’re just treating us with respect and kindness, though that last option confuses and terrifies me as much as these changes my body is going through (I’m “perspiring” and becoming “interested in girls”, which believe me is very unsettling when you’re 40.) Does it matter? The plan works for me, and it can work for a select bunch of y’all. Here’s what I know:
The cities to be hit are:
Seattle
Austin
Sacramento
Boston
Altanta
Chicago
San Francisco
Las Vegas
Denver
The Portland of Oregon
If you’re in or near one of those, you might wanna stop by. There’s supposed to be a “Can’t Stop the Signal” page on this website (I don’t know where it is — hey, I remembered my damn password, doesn’t that buy me any cred?) There should be more info there soon about how to get in, bringing peeps into the fold, I think there’s even competetions and stuff. (All I know is I have exactly 20 Brownie points. I answered ONE triv Q and got it wrong. Forget cred. I have no cred.) Now a couple of us might just creep into one of those major metropolitan multiplexes to see if anyone does show up, so remember: swearing in Chinese ONLY.
All right. This will please the fans and satisfy the employers of Joss Whedon, so I must stop as my arm-lasers are getting tired. I politely thank you for your attention.
Should be fun.
-j.
UPDATE: I started to notify some of the usual suspects, and noticed that they’ve already blogged the phenomenon themselves. It’s good to see this movie getting the attention it deserves.