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ISSUE #32.31 • NEWS • NEWS STORY

How Portland Found Serenity


Local fans of a sci-fi cult fave go international.

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IT'S...ALIVE! Serenity characters like River Tam (Summer Glau) keep Browncoats marching.
BY ZACH DUNDAS | zdundas at wweek dot com

[June 7th, 2006] Judged by the iron rules of showbiz, Joss Whedon's TV series Firefly and the spinoff movie Serenity were failures. Interesting—with their ragged Wild West-meets-sci-fi settings and cast of gunslinging outlaw spacefarers cursing in Chinese—but failures. The Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator's series bombed on Fox in 2002. The follow-up film stalled at the box office last September.

But that's the old paradigm talking. Firefly attracted an extraordinary worldwide corps of fans who call themselves Browncoats. (The name comes from an always-outgunned rebel army key to Firefly mythology.) And now, Portland's own Browncoats are spearheading an international effort to breathe new life into Serenity, which won critical acclaim, if not huge ticket sales.

In late June, near-simultaneous Serenity screenings in at least 33 cities—from Portland and Montreal to Adelaide, Australia—will raise money for Equality Now, a women's-rights organization Whedon supports. The coordinated onslaught came together online, but originated in a nighttime carpool on Portland's east side.

"It was the end of December," says Christopher Frankonis, the local Browncoat best known for blogging about local politics under the name The One True b!X. "Three or four of us were on the way home from either the Laurelhurst or the Kennedy School. We started talking about how the second-run screenings [of Serenity] were winding down. How can we see it on the big screen again?

"In a few minutes, that turned into 'Let's pick a day and try to organize a screening.' In about five seconds, that turned into 'Let's do a charity screening.' And about two seconds after that, it became, 'Let's pitch this to everyone.'"













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That night, Frankonis nabbed the Internet domain name Cantstoptheserenity.com. Six months later, "Serenity Now/Equality Now" testifies to the Web's capacity to harness the energy of obsessed civilians everywhere.

Frankonis finessed distribution issues with Universal Studios and played a coordinating role. Otherwise, fans in individual cities organized the showings themselves. "I was relentless in pimping the idea," Frankonis says. "Once people emailed me to say they were organizing in Boston, say, I put that up on the site. But there's no central office picking which cities would be involved."

Screenings are scattered over June 22-25. The Portland event, June 23 at Cinema 21 in Northwest Portland, will serve as a rallying point for the local Browncoat battalion. With a Yahoo! group 356 members strong, Portland's Firefly fanbase is one small example of how grassroots, Web-connected enthusiasts are rewriting the entertainment industry's rules.

"It's an interesting period," Frankonis says. "The fanbase is still in the process of collectively deciding what it's going to be. The thing about this particular show is that there's so little of it, any enjoyment we're going to get out of it in the future is going to have to be self-generated. In this case, for once, it's not just fans organizing to convince someone to keep making a show they like. It's fans organizing for the benefit of something bigger."

For tickets and other information on Portland's

"Serenity Now/Equality Now" screening, see www.serenitynow.pdxbrowncoats.com.

 

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RECENT COMMENTS ON “How Portland Found Serenity”

2

How Portland Found SerenityI am so pleased to see this exceptional movie get back on the big screen. Throw in some benefit for women's rights and suddenly bright spots of energy appear all acr...

Story Forum Archive, Jun 8th, 2006 12:00am
3

How Portland Found SerenitySo glad to know that I'm not the only person out there who names her vehicles and pets Jayne, Mal, Wash and Kaylee. This is a great article -- well written and passi...

Story Forum Archive, Jun 13th, 2006 12:00am
4

How Portland Found SerenityIt's great to see the WW giving some love to this cause. This is proof that geeks en masse can get some good done in this world! Hopefully we can sell this screening...

Story Forum Archive, Jun 23rd, 2006 12:00am
5

How Portland Found SerenityIt would be great to see some kind of follow-up in the WW about how successful the Portland screening was, and the event worldwide as well. Maybe after the total are ...

Story Forum Archive, Jun 28th, 2006 12:00am
 
 
 





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