I'm pretty sure Serenity was barely distributed outside the USA. I saw it in the theatre in Paris the week it came out without either having seen Firefly, but it really was at technical release. I think it got less than 15 screens in the whole of France. ANd France usually gets everything, even if only technical. I remember thinking then it would bomb and barely understanding how he producers even saw the economy behind it possible. The film was alright, but nothing special, especially without having seen the series.

Interestingly enough, a huge difference between France and the US regarding how the Box Offiec works is while the US present box office results in terms of gross, France only states the number of tickets sold. So here, we say that movie is a minor hit sinec it got 300 000 "seats", or a break through hit since it got 85000 seats in its opening week end. A major hit is 3 000 000 (France has 65-70 million in population). The biggest hit ever was the recent "Bienvenue Chez Les Chtis" which grossed around 20 000 000 seats in France alone (which I now see is around 250 000 000 $), I don't think it was released anywhere else since the movie is extremely niched (and not that good).

It is less abstract to say the least.

I was surprised when The Spirit tanked.

That's one that I fully expected to tank - no-one outside fairly serious comics nerds had heard of the Spirit, and all the advance publicity and leaks led everyone familiar with the Spirit to avoid the film like the proverbial plague.

Mecha, fwiw here's a summary from Wikipedia (it's in keeping with stuff I've read elsewhere about Fantasia's initial reception):

"Fantasia was first released in theatrical roadshow engagements held in thirteen U.S. cities from November 13, 1940 [75 years ago today!-Farrar] It received mixed critical reaction and was unable to make a profit because World War II cut off distribution to the European market, the film's high production costs, and the expense of leasing theatres and installing the Fantasound equipment for the roadshow presentations. The film was subsequently reissued multiple times with its original footage and audio being deleted, modified, or restored in each version. As of 2012, Fantasia has grossed $76.4 million in domestic revenue and is the 22nd highest-grossing film of all time in the U.S. when adjusted for inflation...Fantasia has grown in reputation over the years and is now widely acclaimed; in 1998 the American Film Institute ranked it as the 58th greatest American film in their 100 Years...100 Movies and the fifth greatest animated film in their 10 Top 10 list."

I didn't watch Serenity or Firefly until a couple years after Serenity came out. I'd like to think that Serenity flopped for the reason most movies do ... it wasn't a good movie.

It's one of the best scores of the 1990s. If the rest of the movie had been as good as the first ten minutes-- that is, up until the Matt Modine character is introduced-- it would have also been a great non-fantasy pirate movie.