Joss Whedon

Well, those who have been very closely tracking Goners - a surprising amount of people, who I kinda now feel sorry for getting hyped up - will know we recently investigated ways to try to get Universal reinvested in the idea of this little motion picture I like to call ’Goners’. That being it’s, you know, working title.

Many of the people who have been lurking around, following this little movie film, came up with great ideas - postcards which looked amazing, little ways of saying ’Hey! Please don’t forget us, Uni’!

As part of the process of investigating this, I started hitting brick walls. It was hard to tell what was happening.

Now, it transpires Mary Parent has left Universal. Mary had been with Universal for a long time, and has been an incredibly successful person for them, developing a huge number of films at the highest level in the firm with Scott. She was the executive force behind Serenity, getting Universal on board with the project and putting it into development before Firefly was even available on DVD. If you want to thank anybody for Serenity, thank Mary. And Joss. And the cast. That film truly was a labour of love - Joss wrote it without negotiating a fee in advance, which is almost unheard of for a Hollywood action movie. Mary also lead Universal to purchase Goners. She was a self proclaimed "Whedon stalker". She saw Firefly, and said ’There’s a movie’. She was correct.

Mary is heading to head up MGM. Without Mary at Universal, obviously it’s possible they could drive ahead with Goners and a Serenity sequel - but it’s kinda unlikely that will. Combined with this little TV show called Dollhouse, for the forceable future, I think Goners is kinda lost. In terms of Serenity on the big screen, painful as is it to say - it’s... over.

Worst. Breakup. Ever.

When a story enters Joss Whedon’s head, he’s said before that it kinda rattles around in there, not leaving. I believe Joss not only has a story for Goners, but wants to make it. Mostly because I read him say that on my Mac. I believe my Mac - it has words in colour, so it must be true. Joss always said if he couldn’t keep telling the Serenity story, he’d splash the details on another medium - the internet, comics. At the minute, he’s talking ’bout doing a comic mini-series revealing Book’s history, called ’A Shepherd’s Tale’.

Maybe Goners will one day appear in some form? Until then, I pitty Joss’ poor brain.

And Mary and everybody at Universal: thank you. For Serenity. Truly. It was never going to be closure enough for the loss of Firefly, but it sure was great to see those people on the big screen. Those characters live on, not just in Joss Whedon’s brain box. And if MGM want to make original movies with a guy who loves cinema.... Don’t call me, I’m an idiot: call Joss. He’s in the phone book under ’Has vision, wants screen’. And likely ’Very tired’.

And if any of this isn’t true, don’t panic: it’s not in colour.

 gossi