A long time ago, we used to have Veronica
Mars on our television screens but then unfortunately this fantastic
teen-noir was cancelled. Since it’s cancellation everyone that was involved
with or in love with this show yearned for something more and that something
was a movie. Well it’s been a long wait but it’s finally going to happen: the Veronica Mars Movie is a go. That’s not
all, because not only is this movie happening but it’s happening because of us
and that is a really big deal.
By now I’m sure you have all heard about The
Veronica Mars Kickstarter Movie Project but if you have been living
under a rock (or maybe just uber interested in the new pope) here’s the gist.
At about 10.30am ET Rob Thomas (the writer not the singer) and Kristen Bell announced
that a Veronica Mars movie was
happening… they just needed a little help. Help coming in the form of 2 million
dollars worth of donations from fans. If they managed to reach this goal in 30
days WB would be willing to front the bill for marketing and distribution. Using
the funding platform Kickstarter,
Thomas and Bell managed to make the target in less than 10 hours; meaning that there
will indeed be a Veronica Mars
movie in the very near future.
There have been divided responses to this project but everyone
recognizes that its success is a game-changing event. I’m not going to go into
details about industry models and out-dated funding systems because there are a
million people out there are more qualified than me to comment on these matters.
I am also well aware of the issues people have pointed out including the fact
that Warner Bros is forcing fans to pay for a film simply because they are not
game enough to front the funding themselves. Especially considering its Warner
Bros that will reap the rewards of the films success. But what these people
don’t seem to understand that fans are aware of this.
Fans are not the delusional idiots that most people believe us to be
(not all of us anyway). Most of us have a fairly good understanding of how the
entertainment business works. We get
it (and I mean we because I am one of over 40,000 people that backed this
project), we know we’re giving money to the big bad media conglomerates when
they really don’t need it. We’re not investing in Warner Bros we’re investing
in ourselves. We really love Veronica
Mars and we genuinely believe it is worthy of a film. We’re not being duped by studios we are choosing to wield the power
that we have always had.
This project is all about fan agency. It’s not your everyday viewer
that is willing to invest their own hard earned money to turn their favourite
television show into a movie. The so called casual viewer that networks and
studios have been so desperate to please for all these years has no place in a
project like this. This is all about that hardcore passionate group of people
that call themselves ‘fans’ despite the fact that the term comes loaded with connotations
of insanity. Think about it this way – the Kickstarter funding project is
literally putting a price on how much you want a movie to be made and let’s
face it the casual viewer just isn’t going to pay up.
Honestly though the thing you need to understand is that while I
would be pleased by any shifts to the Hollywood system that this projects
inspires (as long as they don’t move towards further exploitation of fans)
that’s not why I choose to pledge money to The Veronica Mars Movie Project. I
love Veronica Mars right down to my
gooey marshmallow insides and I want to see it made into a movie almost as much
as I want a pony. So in the same way that I choose to go the cinema or buy a
DVD, I choose to give money to this project simply because I want to see it.
The truly mind-boggling thing about it is that the reason the Veronica Mars Movie is being made
because we wanted it to be. Basically Warner Bros said: “we don’t think you
guys will pay to see this movie” and we replied with “wanna bet?” And boy did
we rise to the challenge.
Fans really are amazing people and their choices (even if you don’t
agree with or understand them) should not be ignored. The Veronica Mars movie is a thing that is happening because a bunch of
passionate people decided it was worthy and no matter what else you that that
is seriously cool.
But you know what they say about Veronica
Mars fans, they’re marshmallows.
