You realize if all the Buffistas end up in hell, all threads are going to be Bureaucracy threads.

I suppose next you're gonna tell me that hell has bad WiFi....

Taking apart the Serenity numbers:

According to Universal, 52% of the audience was 30+; 61% was male. Demographic-wise, ick. Not saying that 30+ male is ick (I am one, after all), but 30+ males don't tend to be repeat viewers in the theater.

$10.1M was pretty eh, though it did very well in places you'd think it would do well in (SF, Seattle). Per screen it did OK.

Overall box office was really off this weekend, though. 25% lower than last year.

The bad news in all of this is Universal talking up "ancillary revenues." IOW, DVDs.

The real problem, though, appears to be Universal's inability to get Serenity to appeal to anyone who didn't watch Firefly. The campaign worked well to get the fans in the theater, but when you're saying that 40% of the weekend audience is fans... shouldn't it be 20% with a show that never topped 10M viewers? They really botched something in the campaign.

Honestly, I don't see any evidence of a botched campaign. It may just be that the concept itself has limited appeal and isn't going to do better than that. But I have no problems with the marketing blitz I've seen from Universal - ads have been everywhere, and most of the ones I've seen have been good representations of the movie.

Not saying that 30+ male is ick (I am one, after all), but 30+ males don't tend to be repeat viewers in the theater.

Unless the 30+ males in question are fanboys, in which case, all bets are off, and they probably got the repeat in on day the first.

Almost everyone in our viewing party was a 29+ male, most of them were 30+. Many of them were on at least their second viewing.

Honestly, I don't see any evidence of a botched campaign. It may just be that the concept itself has limited appeal and isn't going to do better than that. But I have no problems with the marketing blitz I've seen from Universal - ads have been everywhere, and most of the ones I've seen have been good representations of the movie.

And, what Matt said.

Most of my party was women. There were three large fan groups in the theater. One was almost all men. Mine was almost all women (there were two men). The third was more mixed, but I would guess slightly more women. Those not in fan groups seemed fairly evenly divided.

My only complaint about the campaign is the blue poster. Blegh. I think they should have done more with the Serenity logo and less with blue Mal and River. That said, I don't think that the poster is probably keeping people away. I mean, I love the Lord of War poster and it has gotten good reviews, and I'm not running off to go see that one.

I would think that this movie would do well on DVD, but I'd like to see it do better in theaters first.

Like ita and Matt, several of us had some honey crisp apple today, when -t's step dad served it to us. Ours was yummy.

I'm going to have to look for these apples. I discovered Jazz apples in Seattle this summer. Yummy. But I haven't been able to find them at home. Bummer. They were the first I've found that I actually liked a little better than Braeburns.

I think it would be interesting to compare Serenity's weekend box office to opening weekends of other spaceship/other planet/special effects movies.

You know what doesn't work? Repeated uses of the word "care" in a form letter that's signed by "Customer Care Representative #746."

Cheerios, as I'm the only one awake.

The eclipse is about halfway now - I feel like doing a watch-and-post about it, except I don't think Nilly or Fay are around.

It always surprises me how dark and cold it gets with even just a teensy bit of the sun occluded.

Mallory doesn't seem impressed.

Cheerios, as I'm the only one awake.

Not the only one. But I'm considering trying to go back to bed since the boy is still asleep.