Serene Chronicles of Choice

I was considering the whole sci fi thing yesterday and was pondering what was a good action sci-fi movie? There are great things on tv like Stargate: Atlantis, the extremely well done drama Battlestar Galactica, but I had to think a little lower yet bigger in scale. I reviewed some of my past rentals and then it hit me. I really liked The Chronicles of Riddick way better than Serenity. It was just subconscious geek processing that led me to this so I've come across some hard fact numbers as well as reasonable comparisons that will show this.

Box Office Head to Head
Serenity
Domestic: $25,514,517 65.7% + Foreign: $13,333,148 34.3% = Worldwide: $38,847,665
Opening Weekend: $10,086,680 (2,188 theaters, $4,610 average) % of Total Gross: 39.5% Widest Release: 2,189 theaters

Chronicles of Riddick
Domestic Total Gross: $57,761,012 50.1% + Foreign: $57,605,740 49.9% = Worldwide: $115,366,752
Production Budget: $105 millionEst.
Opening Weekend: $24,289,165 (2,757 theaters, $8,809 average) % of Total Gross: 42.1% Widest Release: 2,757 theaters

Numbers Conclusion: Both of these films were released by Universal Studios and had nearly the same Theatre covereage. More people saw the Chronicles of Riddick. Serenity, around the world, was decidedly less popular. Thats really sad because it shows taste outside of American interests, and usually films do better overseas, and studios push harder outside of the U.S. when films don't make th chee$e at home.

And looking into this a little more, I had no freaking clue that this movie was based on a brief one season sci-fi series called Firefly which featured the same cast in the movie as it did on t.v. This should have given it more edge in terms of demographic knowledge. Apparently the show really really really sucked which is why it didn't matter. As an article I read went:Firefly was one of the beleaguered Fox network's many casualties, ranking 66th in the Nielsen ratings for its first episode and quickly descending to around 100th place for the rest of its run. Out of 14 produced episodes, Fox aired 11, unceremoniously and out-of-order Now the movie came out after the series cancelled and maybe they were trying to do a flip flop of director/writer Josh Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which began as a failed movie and became a successful TV series. Apparently this is not Universally true. The Chronicles of Riddick didn't even have a series and also it was a sequel to Pitch Black which had an even lower budget but was good enough to warrant a sequel, maybe even a third installment.


Movie Comparison

In Serenity Mal is a mercenary guy that takes on Simon Tam and his genetically modified super sister River Tam. They are fighting against the over powerful life infringing Alliance and theres this black ninja assassin guy who says, "I don't have a name. (a.k.a. i'm a poorly developed character) There's also a motley crew of spaceship hands on their ship named, the Serenity. Apparently they were trying to avoid all references to the above mentioned Firefly debacle.

In Chronicles of Riddick (Vin Diesel) is the last of vicious race called the Furions who takes on the universe dominating Necromongers who are lead by the Vaako. Now, as ridiculous as all of that is for Riddick, I liked it a lot more. I feel that bad names are way better than no-names. In T2 neither of the Terminators had names but at least they had model designations. And also, Riddick has a much more epic feel to it kind of like a space age Conan the Barbarian, which was also super cheesy in its own right.

A lot of sci-fi films follow and borrow from other stories. Its the nature of narrative. its the few that stand out which become epic benchmarks. The big deal with Chronicles and Serenity is that neither of them was great or original. Serenity tried to take the a brooding mercenary and give him a heart by helping out two souls as some petty homage to Han Solo. There's some kind of Orwellian addressment to the overarching government coverup in the Utopian dream run amuk. And then we have the reavers, mindless cannibals who go around hunting down normal humans. Riddick had that too with the Necromongers but they were undead armies that had a plan led by some extra-dimensional forces that made them scarier. Actionwise the definition of character was more emotive. When the assassin in Serenity tries to reason with Mal and then he just shoots him point blank in an instant. And then theres the scene where Riddick creeps out of the shadows and takes down some goons to save a family. Riddick clearly says less and brings out more for his character.

Also, Serenity couldn't even come up with its own slogan, they borrowed from the X-Files "Fight the Future" creedo from their last movie, which also kind of sucked. I was with Joe at Frye's electronic store last night and apparently Universal is trying really hard to get rid of Serenity. It was packaged with a red sticker that said $10 off of Serenity (with purchase of the award winning Battlestar Galactica series set). I guess it can't even sell itself so they have to try to throw it with something good. Kind of like accessories you really don't want or need that are added in on Home Shopping Network.