The Firefly media franchise is an American space Western media franchise created by Joss Whedon and produced by Mutant Enemy Productions. The franchise includes the TV series Firefly, the film Serenity and other media.
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The franchise is set in the year 2517, after humanity's arrival in a new star system, and follows the adventures of the renegade crew of Serenity, a "Firefly-class" spaceship. Whedon described the Serenity crew members as "nine people looking into the blackness of space and seeing nine different things".[1]
The franchise explores the lives of people who fought on the losing side of a civil war and now make a living as part of the pioneer culture that exists on the fringes of their star system. In addition, it is set in a future where the only two surviving superpowers, the United States and China, fused to form the central federal government, called the Alliance, resulting in the fusion of the two cultures as well. According to Whedon's vision, "nothing will change in the future: technology will advance, but we will still have the same political, moral, and ethical problems as today."[2]
Firefly, the first part of the franchise, was a short-lived TV series. One season of 14 episodes was produced. The series was initially broadcast on Fox from September 20, 2002 to August 19, 2003. Fox canceled it after 11 episodes were aired. The remaining 3 episodes were later aired on SciFi (now SyFy). Despite its relatively short lifespan, the series received strong sales when it was released on DVD and has large fan support campaigns.[3][4] It won an Emmy Award in 2003 for "Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series."
The film Serenity was released on September 30, 2005. The film acts as a sequel to Firefly and features much of the same cast and crew. The film was directed by Joss Whedon. It was released on DVD, VHS and UMD on December 20, 2005, on HD DVD on April 18, 2006 and Blu-ray on December 30, 2008.
It received generally positive reviews and opened at number two, taking in $10.1 million its first weekend, spending two weeks in the top ten, and totaling a domestic box office gross of $25.5 million and a foreign box office gross of $13.3 million.[5] However, it did not make back its budget until its release on DVD. Serenity won film of the year awards from Film 2005[6] and FilmFocus.[7] It also won IGN Film's Best Sci-Fi, Best Story and Best Trailer awards and was runner up for the Overall Best Movie.[8] It also won the Nebula Award for Best Script for 2005, the 7th annual 'User Tomato Awards' for best Sci-Fi movie of 2005 at Rotten Tomatoes, the 2006 viewers choice Spacey Award for favorite movie, the 2006 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form[9] and the 2006 Prometheus Special Award.
A novelization of the film Serenity, written by Keith R. A. DeCandido, was published by Pocket Books in 2005. At the time that book was contracted, Pocket Books also contracted to publish two original novels, and solicited proposals from various authors. However, none of these proposals were approved by Joss Whedon, and after a year had elapsed, the contract was canceled.[10]
One of the novels, My Own Kind of Freedom by Steven Brust, was released under a CC license.
Several comic books have been produced for the franchise, all published by Dark Horse Comics. Serenity: Those Left Behind, released in 2005, is a three-issue miniseries which acts as a bridge between the TV series and the film. Serenity: Better Days, a three-issue miniseries released in 2008, tells of the Serenity crew becoming rich after a successful job. Serenity: The Other Half is an 8-page story released online as a part of Dark Horse Presents. In November 2010, Serenity: A Shepherd's Tale was released as a hardcover graphic novel that depicts the secret former life of Derrial Book.
The R. Tam sessions is a series of five short videos released online in promotion of the Serenity film. They were also released on the Serenity Blu-Ray.
Set before the events of Firefly, the R. Tam sessions depict excerpts of counseling sessions with the character River Tam while she is held at an Alliance "learning facility" known only as "The Academy." The counselor in these sessions is played by Joss Whedon himself, while Summer Glau appears as River. The videos shed some light on the experiments and torture "The Academy" conducted on River. They "document" her change from a shy child prodigy to the mentally unstable character of the television series.
The Serenity role-playing game was produced by Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd and released in 2005. Its mechanics are the first iteration of the Cortex System.
The soundtrack to Firefly was mostly composed by Greg Edmonson. The theme song of the series, "The Ballad of Serenity," was written by Joss Whedon and performed by Sonny Rhodes. The soundtrack to the series was released on CD on November 8, 2005 by Varèse Sarabande, although a 40 minute soundtrack was released by Fox Music in September 2005 as a digital EP.[11] The soundtrack to the Serenity film was composed by David Newman and released on September 27, 2005.
The franchise stars the crew of the ship Serenity: Malcolm Reynolds "Mal", Zoe Washburne, Hoban Washburne "Wash", Inara Serra, Jayne Cobb, Kaywinnit Lee Frye "Kaylee", Simon Tam, River Tam and Shepherd Book.
A one-shot comic, Serenity: Float Out, written by Patton Oswalt and focusing on the character of Wash, was published in June, 2010.[12] On October 4, 2007, Alan Tudyk said that sales of the then newly-released Serenity: Special Edition DVD had led to "talk [of] doing another movie".[13] Joss Whedon has since discounted that statement as being "wishful thinking" and added "I want to do more, but nobody's talking about doing more right now."[14]
On December 8, 2006, The Multiverse Network announced that it had obtained the rights from Twentieth Century Fox to develop a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) based on the series.[15] As of 2008, little progress had been made. On 3 September, 2008, as part of a press release announcing the development of an MMOG based on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series, Multiverse stated that work on the Firefly MMOG had been delayed as there were "some issues that need to be worked through",[16][17] although some gaming news sites have expressed doubts, based on the lack of progress with the Firefly MMOG, about whether or not it will be completed or released.[18][19]
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