Entertainment

08:49 PM CDT on Thursday, September 29, 2005

By MANUEL MENDOZA / The Dallas Morning News

Backers of Serenity, the movie version of Fox's short-lived TV series Firefly, made the unusual decision to start sneak-previewing the film several months before its release. By now, it has shown many times in paid screenings around the country, including Dallas. Universal Studios and writer-producer Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, decided to shoot the movie after the Firefly DVD surprisingly sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Mr. Whedon took time to answer a few questions about the film recently:

Question: Why sneak-preview Serenity so early?

Answer: Once we had a movie that was fairly close to what we wanted, I was talking about what can we do for the fans to keep them excited. And the studio was talking about what can we do to make people who don't know about the movie sit up and listen. And those two agendas coincided. It's really more about getting people who are not a part of this world to go, "What is that?" So when the movie opens without a big name over the marquee, people are still tweaked.

Question: Why has this cult built up around the film and around you and your shows?

Answer: I think it's particular to Firefly. That show is beloved, and it's beloved by a group of people that is different than the Buffy fans, although there's obviously large crossover. It was designed to speak to people with the same kind of emotional tenacity that Buffy had but with a great deal more casual, off-the-cuff humanity and less arch symbolism. These are everyday folk in extraordinary circumstances, which if it's done right is the most exciting thing, because it's us up there.

Question: After doing TV, it looks as if you had fun with a bigger budget and the ability to throw action up on the big screen.

Answer: Let me put it this way: Your average movie-star soccer-coach film costs about the same as this spaceship.

Question: Could this idea of sneak-previewing expand? Is it something the industry can learn from?

Answer: Every case is different, but every time something succeeds somebody else is going to try it. The use of the Internet and fan bases and cults has been pioneered in the Matrix and other movies like Blair Witch . This is a new way of dealing with an increasingly vocal and involved public that the Internet has thrust upon us.

Question: Word has it you're writing and directing the Wonder Woman movie. How did that come about?

Answer: Joel Silver approached me, but I resisted. He asked me to write a memo on my thoughts about what the film could be. By the end of the memo, I was in love with her.

E-mail mmendoza@dallasnews.com