 In an interview on February 17 , 2011 , with Entertainment Weekly , Nathan Fillion joked that : " If I got $ 300 million from the California Lottery , the first thing I would do is buy the rights to Firefly , make it on my own , and distribute it on the Internet " . This quickly gave rise to a fan @-@ run initiative to raising the funds to purchase the rights . On March 7 , 2011 , the organizers announced the closure of the project due to lack of endorsement from the creators , with $ 1 million pledged at the time it was shut down . 
