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The rebirth came when Whedon and producer BARRY MENDEL (The Sixth Sense, The Royal Tenenbaums) took the idea for a feature film to Mary Parent, who at the time was vice chairman of worldwide production for Universal Pictures. “A lot of people have asked how hard it was to convince the studio to do this, and it’s weird…it wasn’t that way at all,” explains Mendel. “Mary was a fan of Joss and kept in touch with him and with me. And to Universal’s credit, they understood that Joss had a passion to do this.”
The studio believed in both Whedon’s vision and this story and purchased the rights to make a major motion picture out of his unique television series. Firefly’s loyal and active international fan base of Browncoats rejoiced. “These people are mad with passion for the things they like,” comments Fillion. “And Joss has an easy way of getting them invested in the characters and the relationships between them.”
The film’s greenlight presented a whole new challenge for Whedon. He shares, “To make all these people and these different worlds come to life with the kind of shorthand that you use in a movie…I needed to give them a story epic enough that it’s not just another episode in these character’s lives, but a journey that will change them forever.”
Two-hundred-odd pages later, Whedon had a draft of what would become Serenity’s script—what he called the Kitchen Sink version—which he then whittled down to a manageable, filmable length. “When it comes to the bells and whistles, yes, we have them all: a hovercraft, action, gunfights, fistfights, cannibals—everything you could want in a movie,” he says. But more important to him was to fully explore the untapped potential of this crew and this story…potential that could only be realized with a feature-length film.
He decided to revolve much of the action of the film around the mysterious character of River Tam, the child prodigy taken by the Alliance and experimented on for unrevealed purposes—until she's rescued by her brother and smuggled aboard Serenity. The Alliance dispatches a deadly Operative who will stop at nothing to reclaim the girl. When, seemingly out of nowhere, River starts attacking everyone in a crowded cantina with the prowess of a trained assassin, Mal and his crew begin to realize that a danger greater to them than either the Alliance or the Reavers may be on board Serenity herself.
“The TV show had nine characters, all of who appear in the film,” Whedon says. “Although you could say Mal is the hero, everybody in it is the hero of their own story, and they’re all equally important to me. More than anything, the movie should leave audiences feeling like they’ve just been through something with people they care about. We have nine people aboard a small transport ship who live on the edges of space, who do the sort of work that is not generally done in science-fiction movies: the odd jobs, the dirty jobs. I love this crew—they’re extraordinary characters. Best of all for me is that the people who play them are also extraordinary actors, extraordinary human beings, and I’m incredibly fortunate to be working with them again.”
Although the cast had all stayed in touch after Firefly ended, reuniting for the script read-through was an emotional experience for all of them. “A lot of these guys I see constantly, but having them play the characters was like seeing friends I hadn’t seen in a long time,” comments Fillion.
“Joss said that he wasn’t done yet,” recalls Glass. “He said not to be surprised if we were all gathered together again in some other place, or in some other expression.”
Baldwin describes Whedon as “a hero, because this project needed to continue, and here we are.”
“It’s a homecoming,” declares Torres.
In addition to the nine characters returning from the series, there were a few key roles that would need to be filled by newcomers to the group, most importantly the role of The Operative. Whedon “wanted the Alliance to be a presence that was truly threatening to our characters.” He continues, “I wanted The Operative to be somebody who was noble and decent and kind, yet still creeped the hell out of you.” Whedon cast CHIWETEL EJIOFOR, who garnered rave reviews for his performance in the acclaimed independent film Dirty, Pretty Things and was part of this summer’s hit drama Four Brothers. Whedon notes, “Chiwetel managed to completely internalize The Operative and make him somebody very real. Decent, thoughtful and a mass murderer.”
Completing the principal cast was the addition of DAVID KRUMHOLTZ (CBS’s Numb3rs) as Mr. Universe, the mysterious man who holds the galaxy’s entire communications network at his fingertips.
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