Monday, April 08, 2013

Thomas Gives "Veronica Mars" Movie Update

With $4.5 million raised and less than a week to go in that successful "Veronica Mars" Kickstarter movie push--series creator Rob Thomas posted an update on the progress of the fan-funded film adaptation.


In a lengthy post late last week, he confirmed that he has finished a first draft of the script which is "too-long." He also talks about how the budget has impacted the film: 

"I wanted to take a moment to explain something that I could have made clearer at the beginning: $2 million was our minimum goal. It would be enough to get a movie made, but it was never going to let us make the exact movie we really wanted to make, or the one we know you deserve. I’ve spoken to the press a lot in the past month — turns out they’ve been pretty excited about this whole thing — and one thing I’ve explained is that the final script will depend on how much we’re able to raise. $2 million would have been enough to get us back on the screen. When we started, we didn’t want to set our goal higher than that, for fear we might lose our chance to make the movie at all. But because of you, we did go higher. Way higher. We’re at $4.5 million now. That’s a lot of money. But for a feature length movie, it’s still a pretty conservative budget. Everything you’ve pledged beyond the initial $2 million gives us more options, and for that I’m eternally grateful. More backing means more locations, more sets, more actors, and most important of all, more shooting days.The bottom line? That extra support will give us the freedom to make the best movie possible. That additional money could mean the difference between a movie that lasts 90 minutes, and one that lasts 110. It could also mean the difference between us shooting in Southern California, where the series was shot, and in a less expensive location somewhere else. (To be clear, I can’t make guarantees yet about how long the movie will be, or exactly where we will shoot, and the last thing I want is to make a promise I can’t keep. But what I can promise is this: the more we end up with, the more freedom we’ll have, and the better our movie will be. That’s what this is about.) That’s a long explanation, but we know we’re asking a lot of you. In return, we want you to know that we’re not going to take all of the additional funds and swim around in a mountain of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck. Some of the money we raise will go toward the different rewards and incentives we’re offering, like t-shirts, posters, DVDs, and premiere events. Turns out, a lot of it will also go toward shipping costs to get those rewards out to you. But I promise: after those costs, every dollar we raise will go toward making this movie the best it can be."

Kristen Bell and Jason Dohring as Logan Echolls are the only confirmed cast members for the "Veronica Mars" film so far.

Thomas writes the script and will direct the feature-- "Life has taken Veronica away from Neptune. In the years since spoiling Keith's chances to be reelected sheriff, Veronica hasn't taken a case. But something big is about to bring her back home and back to her calling - which just happens to be around her ten year high school reunion."

"The movie is outlined, but frankly, I needed to know how we were doing to figure out how to model the script and how to write it. There are very specific things that are going to be affected by what our budget is," Thomas told The Hollywood Reporter in mid-March.

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