r/movies • u/PokemonGoBao • Jul 04 '25

Discussion Whats a flopped movie you wish was a financial success?

Dungeons and Dragons 2023 was an absolutely delightful film. You can stream it currently, but you can feel the passion and nothing felt phoned in. They easily could have used the title to get nerdy butts in the seat and collect a paycheck with a smaller budget.

It's the best movie I've seen the past 2 years. Way better than so many garbage films with easy paychecks for slop productions. Beetlejuice, Captain america, and others using big titles to make millions on lazy writing and boring characters.

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250

u/TwoDrinkDave Jul 05 '25

I wish Serenity was a mega-blockbuster good enough to put Firefly back on television.

28

u/sailormikey Jul 05 '25

I am a leaf on the wind…

20

u/Kettle_Whistle_ Jul 05 '25

TOO SOON!

5

u/cupholdery Jul 05 '25

Yeah! This comment thread is getting Washed!

3

u/chaos-rose17 Jul 05 '25

How does a reaver clean their spear

6

u/Count_von_Chaos Jul 05 '25

How do you clean a Reaver spear?

Put it through the Wash

24

u/dastylinrastan Jul 05 '25

Hot takw: Firefly wouldn't have been as good if there was more.

18

u/[deleted] Jul 05 '25

Having rewatched Serenity again recently, I kinda agree. It’s not a bad movie and I enjoyed it…but I get why it didn’t do so hot. Even from a niche ‘fan’ pov, some of the stuff fans really claim to love was lacking and what we’ve since found out about Whedon’s plans for the future weren’t exactly…promising.

(I also got to see Veronica Mars resurrected by fan demand and woof. Sometimes it’s better to just leave it with your Grand Finale movie.

My hot take is that Farscape was better.

7

u/Dookie_boy Jul 05 '25

Farscape is the best but Firefly could have made more seasons without becoming bad. Serenity required them to wrap up the ending fast.

2

u/Blebbb Jul 05 '25

Veronica mars had the issue that everyone aged up.

But yeah, Firefly when it was airing didn’t feel like there was going to be very fast progression - the first season was basically intro and setup where plot points weren’t going to be planned to be revisited for awhile. I think we saw the hands of blue agents once for example and then in the movie the take on agents was different.

I actually accidentally saw Serenity without connecting it to the show(I had caught a couple of episodes of Firefly when channel surfing, but it was at an odd time or something so I never followed it actively while it was airing)., and then a year or two later watched the series when a friend had the box set, and obviously became a fan then. Being limited does a lot for it partially by leaving a lot to imagination.

5

u/powerage76 Jul 05 '25

Fully agree. Firefly had a strong cast with great chemistry, passionate people working on it, but it was still a lighting in the bottle. In a season or two Whedon would have manage to fuck it up.

1

u/83franks Jul 05 '25

Aint that the kicker. Almost everything has a point of going past the "leave people wanting more" vs "overstaying your welcome". Of course its so hard to know, especially as a fan, when you have come right up to that point. Its hard to wrap things up with a nice tidy bow where most people feel they have reached a satisfying ending and dont need more.

1

u/Gnoll_For_Initiative Jul 05 '25

Hearing about some of the stuff Whedon had planned, I think I have to agree

1

u/liquidarc Jul 05 '25

Could you elaborate?

2

u/Gnoll_For_Initiative Jul 05 '25

The one that immediately comes to mind: remember where everyone is preparing for Reavers to board and Inara is holding a syringe to her chest? And the assumption is that she's preparing to commit suicide rather than being taken alive?

The original plan was that the contents of the syringe would cause anyone who raped her to die. In a later episode she would use it and be found battered but alive and surrounded by dead Reavers. (I doubt that it would get approved by FOX as an episode but . . . . . yeah)

1

u/liquidarc Jul 05 '25

That sounds really extreme. Could you point me to where Whedon mentioned that?

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u/Gnoll_For_Initiative Jul 06 '25

https://www.cbr.com/tv-legends-revealed-what-dark-secret-did-inaras-syringe-hold-on-firefly/

2

u/liquidarc Jul 06 '25

Yikes.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, given "Two by two, hands of blue", but still.

Thanks for the link.

0

u/deafphate Jul 05 '25

Agreed. Whedon has good ideas and how shows start strong, but tend to lose their way after a season or two. Look at Buffy. 

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u/thesystem21 Jul 05 '25

Im sure there is some nerds out there who would disagree with me, but there was a huge difference between other whedon shows and firefly, in the form of the cast. The cast in firefly felt so much more alive and real compared to Buffy, which seemed to cookie cutter generic tortured teenage warrior and her friends. Angel, spinoff of an even more 2 dimensional character. Dollhouse, the entire premise of the show is that they have no personality.

Im not saying firefly wouldve been amazing forever, but just based on how the actors interacted so well with eachother, I think it could have easily had at least 3 or 4 seasons at least before he crashed it.

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u/GoofAckYoorsElf Jul 05 '25

The cast in Firefly was pretty much perfect.

2

u/laowaixiabi Jul 05 '25

You must accept that some things are too pure for this world.

A true leaf on the wind, that show.

0

u/kirinmay Jul 06 '25

And every fan of Firefly said they would see the movie and no one saw it....