RavishingRickRudo

I've been lurkin around the Fireflyfans.net message board and came up with these two: Since Variety is by subscription only, I"m posting the whole thing: 'Firefly' feature alights Whedon project jumps from Fox TV to bigscreen By GABRIEL SNYDER Last month, Universal greenlit "Serenity," a feature based on Joss Whedon's TV show "Firefly," which Fox canceled in 2002 after airing only 11 episodes. The film biz is filled with adaptations of hit TV series, such as "Charlie's Angels" and "Starsky & Hutch." But it's rare when a feature is based on a nonhit, such as the six-episode "Naked Gun" and the never-aired-pilot "Mulholland Dr." In each of those cases, the pics featured the original contributors of series -- and went on to significant bigscreen success. "Serenity" is hoping to similarly rewrite the TV-to-film rules. But then, breaking the rules is familiar territory to Whedon, who created the series and will direct the film. Five years after the 1992 film "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" opened to ho-hum box office, he used the material to create a TV show that became a seven-year hit and even spawned a spinoff, "Angel." Now he's reversing that process with "Serenity." While Universal's decision may seem like an eyebrow-raiser, it's closer to a no-brainer: The risk is modest, and the rewards could be plentiful. With a first-time director and no pricey stars (Adam Baldwin, Morena Baccarin, Sean Maher), the pic is a bargain, particularly for a sci-fi actioner: under $40 million. Most of it will be shot on stages on the U lot. The handful of locations will be in the L.A. area. In addition, "Firefly" has a loyal fan base. A number of Internet fan sites, such as CHUD.com continue to dissect "Firefly," follow Whedon's career and swap series action figures. "If you strike a chord with fans of science-fiction adventure, they're never going away," Whedon says. This would seem to ensure a built-in audience for "Serenity" at the box office and afterward. The "Firefly" DVD has sold a surprising 200,000 copies since it was released last December. (The release fortuitously came out while U execs were debating greenlighting the pic.) Underlying the deal was U's desire to be in business with Whedon. His shingle, Mutant Enemy, has an exclusive television deal with Fox and no motion picture deal. U execs, particularly vice chair Mary Parent, had been trying to figure out a way to work with Whedon for years. Fox had touted "Firefly" for its 2002 season as a show that could potentially fill the sci-fi gap in its sked created by the end of the aging "X-Files" franchise. The concept was to set an ensemble of characters familiar from Westerns (the noble outlaw, the hard-scrabble preacher, the practical prostitute) in outer space 500 years in the future. But just 11 of the 14 "Firefly" episodes produced made it to air. Interrupted by baseball and dropped for November sweeps (much to Whedon's chagrin), the show never caught on with a big enough audience to justify its 8 p.m. Friday slot (the show averaged a 2.1 rating and a 7 share; it also briefly ran at 9 p.m.). Just before Christmas, Fox pulled the plug, using "Fastlane," which would itself later be yanked, as a replacement. After the cancellation, Whedon sat down with Chris Buchanan, the president of his production company, and his longtime agent Chris Harbert of CAA and started brainstorming how they could keep the project alive. Per-episode production costs were high. They mulled cable and tossed around the idea of a miniseries. The very last idea on their list was turning to a movie studio to make a feature version. So Universal stepped in, purchased "Firefly" rights from Fox and gave it a greenlight. Thus, U and Whedon are fulfilling the fantasy of every TV writer who has had a show canned after just a few episodes. "You have no idea what this means to writers," Whedon says. "You took something you love and you got a second shot. Do you know how often that happens to writers? Never."

Yamamoto/Kerr was a "survival" match, which basically meant that they'd go on to compete for the GP. Of course, I'm not complaining that Yamamoto is out I still have yet to hear Mauro Ranallo commentate for PRIDE, and am now starting to really dread having to listen to him for the GP show .

for the WrestleMania XX opinions at least, he writes it from what seems like a fan's perspective. Actually, he wrote from a WWEmployee perspective.

I've worked harder typing this post

Brock-Goldberg: I think the less said the better. I’ve worked harder on a house show in front of 200 people for $50. Best. Quote. Ever.

WrestleMania XX March 22, 2004 Well another WrestleMania has passed and I am yet to get my Mania match. Oh well, you can’t win all the time. Well maybe you can, but I surely can’t. Even without my match, WrestleMania week was a huge success for me. I say WrestleMania week because we always spend the whole week leading to Mania, in town promoting and preparing for the event. I arrived in New York City Tuesday morning and went practically none stop all week. Tuesday was book business for me. I finally got the chance to meet Maggie G, face to face. Maggie has been helping me with Book Marks since we did Burglar in the Closet (which I think was the fall of 2002). Maggie is Lawrence Block’s (Author of Burglar in the Closet) Webmaster/publicist, which is how we first made contact. Maggie has since hooked me up with Lee Child (Killing Floor) and T. Jefferson Parker (Silent Joe). We tried to meet once before but I got too busy and screwed it up. Tuesday we managed to sit down for lunch and we were lucky enough to have both Lee Child and Lawrence Block join us. We had a great time getting to know each other and I managed to walk away with several advance reader copies of some up coming books. Most notable the latest Bernie Rhodenbarr mystery, Burglar on the Prowl, which is now on shelves, and is fantastic, and The Enemy, Lee Child’s latest Jack Reacher book. I just started the Enemy so I will have to let you know about this one. After lunch Maggie took me on a bit of a book tour, taking me to Partners & Crime, a local mystery bookshop (www.crimepays.com ), it was a charming store and if you are ever in NY be sure to check it out. (44 Greenwich Ave.) After Partners & Crime, Maggie to me to The Strand A.K.A. 8 Miles of Books. The Strand is an unbelievably huge used bookstore, which I could have rummaged through for hours. Unfortunately I didn’t have hours but I did manage to pick up a couple of odd Hardcover book I’d been looking for. If you want to check out The Strand it’s on the corner of Broadway and 12th street. That pretty much filled my Tuesday, I hit the gym had dinner and relaxed in my room, for a little bit of reading. I have this thing that if I get an advance copy of a book I have to read it before it hits shelves. Burglar on the Prowl was hitting stores on Thursday so I had to get to it. Wednesday I was booked up doing appearances. I had a morning meet and greet, and an afternoon Get Real appearance at a local Boys and Girls club. The Get Real program was a ton of fun and I hope the kids, not only had fun, but got our message. Wednesday night I hit the ring to work out, and then it was back to my book. Thursday was a busy one again. I had an early morning meeting at Warner Books. I’ve got an on-line friend who works for Warner. I think he is an Editor’s assistant or and assistant Editor (something to that effect). Well this was my chance to finally meet Jason, face to face and thank him for all his help with Book Marks. Jason was the one who put me in touch with Brian Haig (The Kingmaker), as well as my point man contacting Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl), and Dave Barry (Tricky Business). Jason gave me a quick tour of Warner books and hooked me up with some books I hope will be future Book Club selections. Thursday afternoon, I had to pick my wife up at the airport. We spent the rest of the day just walking around New York taking in the sites. Friday was pretty much more of the same; we ventured to the top of the Empire State Building and did some shopping. Well…okay, my wife did some shopping, I pretty much followed her around carrying bags (LOL). Saturday was the Hall of Fame. Going in I wasn’t sure what I thought of the Hall of Fame. With the nature of our business how exactly do you judge who gets in and who doesn’t. There are some incredibly talented guys who have never stepped foot near a main event and a lot of guys who can’t work a lick who were on top their whole careers. If that wasn’t confusing enough a baseball player (Pete Rose) was getting in. I went in somewhat sceptical. I think my wife and I would have gone to see a Broadway show if not for the Hall of Fame. After the fact, I’m really glad I went, and my only real complaint was that the thing was looooong; it was over 4 hours, with no bathroom breaks, refreshments or food. Some of the speeches went long (wrestlers are never shy about taking the opportunity to talk about wrestling or themselves), but all were entertaining. The lone except Jack Lanza’s induction speech for Bobby Heenan; I am still unsuccessfully trying to make sense of that one. If there was anyone there who has a clue what he was talking about, please clue me in! The highlight of the night was Bobby Heenan. I had forgotten just how entertaining this guy was. I was always a fan of Bobby be it as a manager or announcer and let me tell you he hasn’t lost a step. If they put this thing out on DVD you absolutely have to buy it for the Bobby Heenan speech alone. Bobby had the entire room roaring with laughter through out and even managed to make most of us cry by the end. I truly thought Ric Flair was going to have a coronary right up there on stage, he was laughing so hard. Bobby Heenan is the greatest manager this business has ever scene and if he were ever to come back, The Rock may have to change his name to “The Second most electrifying man in Sports Entertainment”; this man knows how to entertain! As for Pete Rose…I’m still not 100% sure he belongs in our Hall of Fame, but let me tell you, he is a class act who deserves to be in someone’s. He was friendly, fun, willing to laugh at himself, and more importantly flattered and honoured to be there. He showed respect for our industry, and both Kane’s induction speech, and Pete’s acceptance speech were entertaining. If we are going to have a none-wrestler in the Hall of Fame, I’m glad Pete Rose is the guy to do it. He is a quality human being who deserves to be in his own Hall of Fame and maybe until Baseball realizes that, we can welcome him in ours. Now for the Show itself: WrestleMania XX. I watched the event with my wife on the big screen in the “Play by Play” room in MSG. You lose the feel of the crowd watching it on the screen, but the arena was sold out and then some, and the Play-by-Play room had catering. I thought the show was fantastic. There wasn’t a bad match of the bunch, except for the Brock-Goldberg contest but since, from what I understand, neither guy works for us anymore, so lets just leave it at that. My favourite match was Eddie and Kurt. Now before everyone jumps all over me about how good the Three-way was, I’ll admit it was a tight call. The reason I’m leaning towards the Eddie-Kurt match is I prefer single matches and there was a lot more pure wrestling in this one. The Three-way was awesome and I couldn’t be happier for Benoit but I still have to go with Eddie and Kurt for my favourite match, the wrestling was just that good. Here are my quick thoughts Match by Match: Cena-Show: A little slow for my tastes, but hey there is a guy over 400 lbs in it. Big win for Cena and more hard work from Show. RAW Tag Title: This one was hard for me to watch because I think I should have been in it. With only one fall they did what they could, exciting finish, which is all you can ask for. Y2J-CLB: I thought this was an excellent match, third best on the show, with a surprise ending I didn’t even see coming. I’m very curious where this one is going! Evolution-Rock and Sock: Not a technical mat classic in my opinion but we got to see The Rock be entertaining as hell, a Foley elbow drop off the apron and, wow a big clean win for Randy Orton; kudos to Mick Foley. Mission accomplished for the match. Playboy Tag: I didn’t really understand them taking their clothes off right away, seeing that that is the biggest pop. It did let them wrestle and they did that way better than I expected them to. Cruiser Weights: Not enough time to do any match justice, but I thought it was exciting and great to watch. These guys work hard. Brock-Goldberg: I think the less said the better. I’ve worked harder on a house show in front of 200 people for $50. SD Tag Title: Pretty much same as the RAW one. Not a formula conducive to a great match. They delivered a hot exciting finish, which is a success in my opinion. Molly-Victoria: Not a big match, because this one was about the haircut. What they did was good and we finally got to see a stipulation honoured to the letter. Kurt-Eddie: Absolutely fabulous, wrestling at its best! Undertaker-Kane: I knew this one would be over shadowed by Taker’s ring entrance, and it was. That was one cool ring entrance. HHH-HBK-Benoit: Incredible, this is what drama, story telling and action is all about. Benoit finally getting his due just makes it all the sweeter! If all I got to see were the two World Title matches, I would consider it a show of the year. Between the two of them I got 1 incredible hour of wrestling, add to that all the other matches, an extremely cool stage set up, and a hair stipulation honoured, I call this show not just a home run, but a home run Pete Rose couldn’t even top. I can’t wait till LA and WrestleMania 21. Till next week, Lance

SHIT sucks, but Rosie fucking rules and works the gimmick well.

Positive: Fedor Noguiera Cro Cop Coleman Herring Frye Takayama Pretty Sure: Barnett Fujita Yamamoto Goodridge Vovchanchyn Kharitonov Possible (some not very probable): Sapp Kerr Erikson McGee Giant Silva Yoshida Gracie Rodriguez Shilt Rizzo Vader (contract w/ Pride) Lesnar (they really want him) Aleksander Emelienanko Enson Inoue Waterman Bobish Wanderlei Silva (has talked about moving up in weight) Matyushenko Tim Sylvia Andre Arlovski If anyone wants to add to this list of possible and likely opponents, go ahead. I think I might remodel my booking.

What are you crazy? You're eliminating the HW Interim champ in the second round. You want an interesting match for the second round I know, but that's just crazy. I mean, it makes sense sort of, but then the rest of the tournament would be plain boring. I say you keep the excitement for the latter rounds. The money match up is in Fedor/Cro Cop. Period. If you have Noguiera/Fedor (which you MUST have for this IMO), it's best to have it in the second round so Fedor won't have to gas out for the finals. I recognize that the possibility exists with Rodriguez for it to go to a decision, but with the way Ricco took Sylvias "punishment" I doubt he could take Fedors. I can understand not having Noguiera for the finals could be a bit of a problem given his status, I just think he would be better suited for the second round. Does anyone really think that someone other than Fedor, Nog, or Cro Cop will be taking this? Doubtful. I forgot about Semmy Shilt and Josh Barnett *smacks head* I think I may have to change my matches . I think Barnett could have a good shot at winning it, if he had the right bounces. Hell, Coleman won it in 2000 and that was mainly because he lucked out. He fought a much smaller Shoji, Fujita threw in the towel right away, and Vovchancyn was the only good challenge he faced and he (igor) had to face Sakuraba for 10 minutes in a previous, active, match.

I don't know how eliminating Herring in Round One will make the second one better. He's in the middle of the pack, give him someone else in the middle of the pack. Herring is still a top, name, heavyweight fighter, leaving him behind elevates those who did make it to the second round. Yamamoto won't be in the GP most likely. Since no one is watching it, I might as well point out that he will be ousted for his loss to Cro Cop today (Surprise surprise). It's a sort of punishment for being disrespectful to Kerr or something. Either way, I'm glad as I would much rather see Kerr than he in the GP. Kerr will most likely be in it from what I've heard. Kerr vs. Yamamoto was a qualifier for the Grand Prix; Yamamoto won, so I can't see how they can take that away from him. I'll be watching Bushido 2. Give us a mini review when you're done

Second Round: Fedor vs. Noguiera Coleman vs. Rodriguez Gracie/Yoshida vs. Cro Cop Sapp vs. Goodridge Third Round: Fedor vs. Rodriguez Cro Cop vs. Sapp Final Round: Fedor vs. Cro Cop

*Big Laugh* I have no idea what you're talking about, PRIDE has always posted their matches well in advance

"Meaning" is very important, especially in something that is "fake" like wrestling.

Huh, sonnofabitch. So does anyone want to make some fantasy brackets?! It's a 16 fighter tournament (which means 8 matches), you can use anyone that has the potential to be in it. Round 1: (In this order *edit, I've changed it up*) Fedor vs. Yamamoto Yamamoto has to be in it, might as well feed him to Fedor and have the champ come out strong and guaranteed to be in Rnd 2. Noguiera vs. Herring A rematch from their PRIDE 17 bout. It could be debated that Herring should be moved up into the 2nd round as well and be fed an easy opponent (Kharitonov, for example), but I think they should get rid of him early, which gives more importance to the 2nd round. Coleman vs. Vovchanchyn A rematch to the finals of the 2000 GP. Kharitonov vs. Rodriguez A filler match, really. Hopefully they'll give Rodriguez a chance in this; I'd like to see him vs. Fedor or maybe Cro Cop. (Royce) Gracie vs. Yoshida Yoshida is a huge star, he needs to be in this, and it would be the marquee match much like the Silva/Sakuraba match was. This time, however, given the tournament format, there can be no draws. Cro Cop vs. Frye Cro Cop destroys another, builds him up. Think of how much attention Cro Cop vs. Gracie/Yoshida would get for the 2nd round. Sapp vs. Fujita Another marquee fight, with the big japanese guy going up against the bigger american. I really hope they get Sapp for this. Takayama vs. Goodridge With 16 fighters, I think they may be a lil short and get Goodridge in there - which he'll be happy to do. Goodridge can give a beating and Takayama can give one, there's your reason for this match. Plus, the 2nd round match would be very interesting given both outcomes. Alternate Possibilities: Erikson Kerr Giant Silva McGee

Yeah, they will be associated and already have. Smith has been doing a great deal of damage control and mentioned when he spoke up here a week ago that the plan was for it to grow an audience, rather than start off strong. They're heavily relying on word of mouth for the success of this film, and "success" is used very loosely.

The HHH thing bothers me too. I really don't like what he does because it negatively effects the product and thus my enjoyment. Brock doesn't... or at least didn't. So I don't really care. I don't hate Hogan for doing it because when Hogan did it, it made me happy because I'm a Hogan mark. The only point where it did was his match at Mania (Brock, that is), so if that was indicative of him working unhappy, then I'm glad he's gone because it would have negatively effected his performance had he stayed. Only when it spills out on screen and effects my enjoyment does it really matter.

You assume that I actually pay attention to what I post I thought the GP started in June.

Well, you have guys like Foley, Benoit, Guerrero, Storm who still, in some ways, represent a brighter side of the business; and in other ways, represent the bad parts, whether directly or indirectly. The Wrestling Industry is a piece of crap, which is why I find it funny how some people get in an uproar about something like Brock leaving when "they need him". For being selfish and not thinking about others. For being what the industry bred him to be. You can either accept it and go on, be a hypocrite and fault one person while letting others off the hook. This is a fundamental issue involved with being a wrestling fan. You support a seedy industry full of death, drugs, and dispair; you LOVE this industry. So why do you do it? I do it for various reasons, mainly because I like the matches and the wrestlers/characters in it (ie: the performances). Brock - for 99% of his inring career - didn't let his passion (or lack thereof) effect his performance, so I don't understand why people are bashing him for it.

The GP is next month?!? Shit. I gotta start paying attention UFC 47 is a definite buy, so I won't be getting Bushido 2. I can't watch a show with that much of a delay on it (at least, I won't _pay_ 30 bucks for one), I love the excitement of a live event where you get the "anything can happen" feel. It's like a drug.

You're still operating from the POV that Wrestling is a Group Effort, that it's all-for-one and one-for-all. It's not. It's very, very selfish. The "the more people I can do business with, the more business I can do" is all nice and good, but it's a fairytale. It's the politically correct answer. Reality says the more people in the boat, the greater the odds that someone might fall out. Let's see. Brock becomes chickenshit champion after pinning Kurt Angle at the ironman match. Brock feuds with Taker (again). In this, he and big show looked horrible against Taker in a handicap match. Brock has a lil spat with Benoit. Brock plays chickenshit heel against Bob Holly. Brock loses title to midcarder Eddie Guerrero. Brock faces Goldberg at Mania, with Steve Austin being the central figure in the feud. (Projected: Brock faces Undertaker... again. And loses.) It's not exactly the best 6 months a wrestler can have. It would certainly give indication that his position in the company would be in jeopardy, given he wasn't treated NEARLY as strong as he was a year earlier. Brock's overness is based on his ability to be the monster, when they start chipping away at that, then his worth in the company greatly lessens.

JR is horrible. When he's not messing up move names he's messing up the wrestlers. He's just one big giant cliche.

I watch wrestling. Clearly I don't.

Actually it was a Jerry Lawler and Jimmy Snuka joke with a lil hint of RF And it was barely a joke, considering the point is that the Wrestling Business is incredibly seedy and anyone who has a conscience is above it.

He's another generic cracker announcer.

That wasn't in reference to WWE storylines. I guess that's the scary thing.