Seeking Funds for Movie, Creator of ‘Veronica Mars’ Turns to Kickstarter

Warner Brothers Kristen Bell (center) and the cast of “Veronica Mars.”

If a “Veronica Mars” movie doesn’t happen now, there will be no mystery about who did it in â€" its loyal fans will be the culprits. Rob Thomas, the television producer and creator of “Veronica Mars,” the cult hit series that starred Kristen Bell as a crime-solving teenager, has thrown down a challenge to viewers who have long clamored for this show to be turned into a film, telling them that they had 30 days to help raise $2 million for the project and calling it “our one shot” to see it happen.

On Wednesday, Mr. Thomas posted his entreaty on Kickstarter, the fundraising Web site, writing that he had tried to pitch a film adaptation of “Veronica Mars,” which ended its television run in 2007 after three seasons on the UPN and CW networks.

“I probably stoked fan fervor in my optimistic comments about the prospects,” Mr. Thomas wrote, adding that Warner Brothers, which owns the “Veronica Mars” property, “wasn’t convinced there was enough interest to warrant a major studio-sized movie about Veronica and the project never got off the ground.”

But after learning of Kickstarter, and calculating that it would take about 30,000 donors pledging $71 each (or 80,000 donors pledging $25 each), Mr. Thomas wrote, “we could finance the movie, particularly if the cast and I were willing to work cheap.”

Since then, Mr. Thomas said, he and Ms. Bell have met with executives at Warner Brothers who, he said, have “agreed to ! allow us to take this shot.” He added: “Their reaction was, if you can show there’s enough fan interest to warrant a movie, we’re on board. So this is it. This is our shot. I believe it’s the only one we’ve got. It’s nerve-wracking. I suppose we could fail in spectacular fashion, but there’s also the chance that we completely revolutionize how projects like ours can get made.”

In her own post on the Kickstarter page Ms. Bell wrote, “I am currently the happiest blonde in a hamster ball the world has ever seen.”

As of 12 noon Eastern time on Wednesday the Kickstarter side had raised more than $120,000 in pledges from some 1,500 donors, or about 6 percent of its $2 million goal. The ball is in your court, “Arrested Development.”