Caffeinated Clint
Captain Tightpants might be returning to Serenity – and thus, our TV screens.
Cult classic “Firefly” – axed after only a few episodes but in that time finding a very devoted audience who followed it to DVD and convention after convention – is now welcome back at the same station that originally didn’t see it’s potential. Sometimes you just gotta laugh…
Currently hell-bent on bringing back classic ‘brands’, beginning with “The X-Files”, “Prison Break” and “24”, Fox have stated that they’d also be willing to bring back “Firefly” should original helmer Joss Whedon agree to return.
Considering Fox didn’t want a bar of “Firefly” a decade or so ago – in fact, Whedon had next to no sway before his “Avengers” success; a planned series of “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” telemovies were canned by the network before he could even rent a faux cemetery – this is quite the about-face. But, of course, Whedon is a big-time movie maker these days, with two splashy big-hit “Avengers” movies under his belt, so he’s now able to get the suits to return his calls.
Universal briefly resurrected “Firefly” for the big screen in 2005, via the feature film “Serenity”, but the lackluster returns quickly saw any and all future films in the proposed series vanish. So while ‘Firefly’ mightn’t be viable as a movie franchise, there’s nothing to say it won’t work on TV.
Fox Broadcasting President of Entertainment, David Madden, said he will look at bringing back “Firefly” if Whedon agrees to do it. So, what do you say Joss?
Nathan Fillion – having recently retired from “Castle” – is now free, most of the original ensemble – aside from the late Ron Glass, who left us recently – are likely ready and willing, and with Fox likely to only want a small number of episodes, to make up an ‘event series’ , it should be pretty easy to facilitate.
The only foreseeable issue here might be rights. Because Universal made “Serenity”, and Fox had the series, both would have to ostensibly partner up on the project. Whedon told Collider a couple of years ago, “there are rights [issues] between Fox and Universal because one had the show and one had the movie, so it gets a little funky fresh with that.”
Let’s get funky fresh then.
