Blogtown, PDX

Thursday, October 11, 2007

TV Buff Gets Boffed

Posted by Courtney Ferguson on Thu, Oct 11 at 4:35 PM

This just in from Uncool Kids…
The awesome Buffy musical of Once More with Feeling has been shut down due to vampires (AKA the accountants at Fox).
From the OMWF musical coordinator:

I don’t yet have an official written statement as to why exactly this has happened, but from my understanding the circumstance around the suspension of the rights for our screenings isn’t greed or anything like that—so please don’t use this as an excuse to lash out at Fox. Basically, the idea of presenting television shows in a theatre is so new that there are a lot of details that still need to be resolved around payments of residuals, deals with the guilds and unions, etc. (I don’t know any specifics, but these are some of the issues that usually come up). Both Fox and Criterion need to fix some of these issues before they can continue to do any theatrical screenings.

Sign the petition to get it back on track!
And what does this mean (if anything) for Mission Theater’s screenings of Angel?

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Comments

Ok, there is a larger story here that's important to grasp, although some of it is information and some of it is speculation still.

This actually first hit a monthly Buffy/Firefly event in Oakland the other day, with the Parkway Speakeasy announcing they had to cancel. Then the OMWF news broke as well.

What we know is this: Fox has told Criterion to stop licensing theatrical performances of its TV shows. So far, we do not have an official statement from Fox as to why.

We do have one source at Criterion indicating that the reason is that an "outside party" has demanded getting its fair share of revenue from such licensing.

This has raised speculation that the move might be related to the looming potential strike by the Writers Guild of America, which in part would be motivated by concerns over writers' cuts of revenue from DVDs and other distribution media.

That is, as I said, speculation, but consistent on the issue and the timing.

(The idea would be that if such revenues are at issue during the negotiations, Fox would have pulled the licensing rights in the interim.)

I think that Blogtown moderates comments with more than one link, so we'll do this: For further context and background and discussion see this Whedonesque post and the earlier one it links to.

Posted by b!X | October 11, 2007 9:54 PM

I would love to see Buffy, Angel and Firefly on the big screen!

Posted by Tracy Weber | October 12, 2007 10:43 AM

Thanks b!X for the info!

Posted by Courtney Ferguson | October 12, 2007 2:43 PM

It's hit the AP, including the first official comment from Fox.

Posted by b!X | October 12, 2007 3:19 PM

Joss speaks.

Posted by b!X | October 12, 2007 9:52 PM

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