Firefly

Alan Tudyk, who reprises the role of space pilot Wash in the upcoming SF movie Serenity, told SCI FI Wire that it was creator Joss Whedon’s perseverance that got the movie off the ground. Serenity is based on Whedon’s canceled Fox SF television series Firefly. "I think it’s a testament to his tenacity that he got Fox to sell the rights and that he got another studio-and no little studio, but Universal-to buy the rights and then to make this multi-million dollar movie based on a show that was canceled," Tudyk said in an interview. "Today is my day off, but yesterday I was shooting with everybody. And there’s a very big déjà vu going on right now."

An SF western set 500 years in the future, Firefly aired for just a few weeks on Fox in the fall of 2002. The show starred Nathan Fillion as Mal Reynolds, captain of the spaceship Serenity, and featured Tudyk as the ship’s pilot. The show’s avid fans transformed the ensuing Firefly DVD set into a best-seller, prompting Universal to green-light a Firefly feature film.

Serenity is currently in production, with all the series regulars back in the fold and Whedon on board as writer and director. "Every day we did Firefly we were thankful," Tudyk said "And then, when we got canceled, even though we knew we had all these fans-because they were taking out ads in Variety and things like that-it seemed like it was over. ... It had kind of been coming, and we’d been mistreated by Fox for a while, to the point where we were like, ’This is going to be over.’ And then when it was, it wasn’t too big of a surprise. It was disappointing, but not a big surprise. But then Joss, at the closing party, said, ’Look, I’m not giving up.’ It was inspiring, but you kind of questioned, ’What do you mean you’re not giving up? Didn’t we just get canceled?’"

Tudyk can be seen next in the upcoming SF film I, Robot, in which he plays the title character. Serenity is tentatively set for release on April 22, 2005. Universal Pictures is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.