‘Con Man’: The Show That Isn’t ‘Firefly’
John Tancredi ’17 / Emertainment Monthly Editor
Once upon a time there was a television show that barely anyone watched called Firefly. The year was 2002 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon brought a literal space western to network television, with a retrospectively all-star cast, including Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk. In the blink of an eye, the show was on and off TV and then was promptly canceled.
Skip to years later, the show has a massive cult following and a follow up feature film called Serenity as well as several comics that take place within the verse. The entire cast seems to love the show and reminisce on the experiences they had even so many years later. Two cast members in particular have remained great friends, the aforementioned Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk. The duo is absolutely hilarious together, riffing on convention panels, appearing on podcasts, among plenty of other appearances.
On March 10th of 2015, a campaign appeared on crowd funding website Indiegogo for a web series called Con Man. Upon viewing the campaign there are two immediately recognizable faces, Fillion and Tudyk. Tudyk has written the series and seeks $425,000 in order to produce three, ten minute episodes, staring himself and buddy Fillion. The cast also includes Felicia Day, James Gunn, and Firefly’s own Gina Torres, who all appear in the hilarious campaign video.
The series follows characters that are more or less the actors themselves. Tudyk plays an actor who formerly starred on a science fiction show where he played the pilot of a spaceship and a network canceled the show, as Fillion puts it, too soon. Fillion’s character was the captain and has gone on to Matt Damon levels of fame. Not much is known about the other characters, but presumably they will also play celebrities and geek icons that travel to conventions doing panels and meeting fans. Anyone who has been to a convention like this knows that it’s the perfect world for a comedy series and who is better to do it than people that actually live that life?
When the campaign launched, some people thought that the asking price for the series was a bit high, but not only does the show require basic production costs, but they also have to put on fake conventions, which should be pretty pricey. But the question still stood, would Con Man reach its goal. Hours later, it did exactly that. Firefly fans rallied around the campaign and the news media gave it a massive boost. With incredible speed the campaign blew right past its goal, currently sitting at over two million dollars pledged. It is one of the highest funded projects on Indiegogo, let alone in the Video/Web category. Not only that but the campaign isn’t even over. Pledges have slowed substantially, but there is still a plenty more room for this campaign to grow as fans come out of the woodwork.
With the extremely high amount of money raised for the project there will of course be more than three episodes produced. The episode count is at about twelve now, and the crew is already talking about a second season.
To support Con Man visit this link:
One Comment