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http://www.ifmagazine.com/new.asp?article=7452


Television to Movies:

Breaking News: BIG SCOOP! CREATOR ROB THOMAS CONFIRMS 'VERONICA MARS' MOVIE

He will write the script, Kristen Bell will star and Joel Silver will produce

By CARLOS DELGADO, Contributing Writer
Published 1/16/2009

LOCATION: Universal City, CA



THE SKINNY: At the tail end of this winter’s television critic’s event, Rob Thomas, who has resurrected his 1998 TV series CUPID for another go-around on ABC, announced that he’s currently working on a VERONICA MARS feature film (based on his short-lived UPN/CW show), now that his new series order has been reduced from thirteen episodes to eight episodes.

"That means I have time to write the VERONICA MARS movie," he says. "But my writing the movie is half the battle. Someone else has to pay for it. Joel Silver does have a certain pile of money. He called on me saying ‘Can we do this now?’ Kristen wants to do it. Joel wants to do it and I want to do it. For me, that’s the next project."

Although he wouldn’t reveal exactly what the story would be, he did tell iF, "it’s 70 percent broken in my head."

"I’ve been struggling with this one plot point and I’m hopeful to figure that out," he adds. "I watched the final episode of the series a few weeks ago and there were a lot of gaps and the plotting for the original came to me. I mean for the movie, I’m feeling like I’m on the right track now. But I don’t want to give that away yet.

In terms of cast, Thomas says he’s talked with Jason Dohring, Enrico Colantoni and Kristen Bell.

"Obviously," he says with a smile.

And while there were always talks of the character of Veronica Mars ending up at the F.B.I., he says that’s not where the movie will be heading.

"The one thing that I will say is where it will pick up," says Thomas. "I know we did that F.B.I. ‘what if’ thing, but we would not go to that place. I think it would open just days before the Hearst College Graduation. So Veronica would be sort of at the end of her college career.

Disappointing about him abandoning the FBI scenario. That to me seemed like a much better idea for a movie than for a TV series and would (IMO) work better for drawing in audiences who have never seen the original show. Tying a movie too closely to a canceled series really hurts its box office potential (I like the TV series but such tied-in movies tend to flop - for example, "Serenity" and the recent "The X-Files" movie - because the only fans of the movie are, for the most part, the diehard fans of the TV series, which there weren't enough of at the end to keep the show from being canceled).

If Rob Thomas really wants the best chance at a successful movie (and potential movie series), he needs to leave the TV series and its hanging plot threads behind as a past history and just resurrect the Veronica Mars character in a new setting with some of the better, familiar characters still a part of her life (such as her father). A movie set at Quantico about a young agent (Veronica Mars) training at the FBI Academy and then getting involved in solving a mystery on the side would a great way to do that.

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If you want to see "what-if" snippets of Veronica Mars as a LEO just watch Kristen Bell's mock series 'Crime Scene' on the Forgetting Sarah Marshall DVD. I just saw it and enjoyed it.

As much as I want to see this and will be there on day 1, sadly I think it will end up drawing crowds like Serenity did... I don't care though, as long as it gets made and I can see it, Ill be happy.

Yeah, they'll need a gimmick to get people into the theater.

I modestly propose a "hard-R" rated film with lots of full frontal nudity from Veronica and Mac.

this Hell bring Carissima Carpenter back to get in on the action. I wonder, do you think a movie like this would need a name actor on the bill to bring in non fans?

While we're at it, lets throw in the naked ghost of Lilly Kane.

Maybe if this movie's successful, it could be a bridge linking the old series to a possible new VM@FBI series.

No love for Alyson Hannigan?

Looks like Thomas will be pitching the movie to the studio next week or two. Thomas warns fans that writing the movie was just one hurdle of many to come to get the movie made in this EW Ausellio Exclusive.

There's nothing really new here other than the pitch is around the corner, but certainly worth noting.

I'll be there if / when it happens.

no news here, just an excuse to post her most recent appearence on the Late Late show
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Kristen should just become Craig Ferguson's sidekick, considering how often she's on his show.

Not that I'm complaining. Kristen and her hairy arms are entertaining.

Pitching the movie is one thing. He's still has alot of hurdles ahead, especially getting Warner Bros. to finance the movie and getting a good script written that WB and Bell will approve.

she never fails to entertain me. it's amazing really. most hollywood starlets are boring but she always has funny stories to tell and witty jokes/comebacks.

In all the recent interviews he says the script is almost complete.

http://blogs.nypost.com/popwrap/arch...ars_movie.html

I'm leading the parade of the heartbroken this morning fellow "Veronica Mars" fans because Rob Thomas, the show's creator, just broke the news to PopWrap that his proposed movie won't be coming soon to a theater near you. Sad face emoticon!

"While the pitch [to producer Joel Silver] went well and I don't think the movie's dead, right now it's looking depressing," Rob exclusively told PopWrap this morning during a chat about "Party Down," his new series. "I think honestly if we would have had the pitch ready a year earlier, it would be a go project. The hope that we would get a quick greenlight didn't materialize. This is the least optimistic I've felt in a while."

But, if there is any silver lining to be found in this dark, dismal storm cloud, Rob felt comfortable sharing what "Veronica Mars: The Movie" would have looked like now that the project isn't headed our way any time soon. "If we were going to do a movie, I would want to put Wallace and Logan and Mac and Weevil in it," he said in regards to whether or not it would focus on Veronica's FBI years. "We would have picked up just prior to Veronica's graduation, it would have been the college years."

As for those of you (read: me) who are still holding grudges against Rob for "Veronica's" ambivalent ending, rest assured, Rob hears you. "It's one of the reasons I wanted to do the movie. There was so much debate as to how we would end season three since it could have been our last episode. But truthfully, I didn't want to make it any easier for them to cancel us. I didn't want to give them that nice happy 'ahhh' feeling."

But should the movie gods smile upon Rob and financially back his baby, the producer is raring to go. "I would love nothing better than to make this movie, I would drop whatever else I was doing!"

Bummer.

Boo!

I'm still waiting for some crazy rich person to start bankrolling movies he/she wants to see. Like George Lucas deciding he'd like to see Serenity 2 or Bill Gates' kid requesting the VM movie. I guess the latter jerk is too worried about saving people's lives or whatever. For shame.

I was looking forward to this movie but I can't really blame the studios for not wanting to pick it up. It would have tanked at the box office. Maybe a direct to DVD type deal might work but I doubt Bell would be into that considering she's making her way up the Hollywood ladder and direct to DVD sounds like a career killer. Maybe Rob Thomas should consider going to WB and seeing if they could make it a low budget TV movie or mini series.

No offense to anyone who loved VM, but this would have tanked as a major theatrical release. I can see why from a business standpoint WB passed on it. I can see this being a $5M budget DTV or Made for TV movie at best.

I can definitely see why they didn't pick it up, but with some of the other projects that get green lit, why not?

The budget for something like this should be low enough to help it get greenlit unless people just want to be paid way too much. It's not like you have huge action sequences or sfx.

Then again, it seems odd to me the sorts of projects that are having trouble getting greenlit the past couple of years.

Exactly. Like everyone else on the boards I would have LOVED to see Veronica one more time (especially on the big screen) from from an economic standpoint this idea made ZERO sense, except as mentioned above as a DTV production budgeted around as much as say 5 episodes of the TV show. But alas, I doubt they'd be able to get the cast together for something that low-brow.

Since Rob Thomas is the only player in this I can think of who is working, I wonder if his take from this isn't the biggest impediment. I can't really blame him for taking other work that would pay him more than a piddly amount if him taking a piddly amount is what would stand between the project and a greenlight.