Veronica Mars creator wowed by Kickstarter record

Since cult hit drama Veronica Mars was cancelled in 2007, fans have been lobbying for a movie version and so has show creator Rob Thomas. Now, with a Kickstarter campaign thats breaking all kinds of records, the movie is going to happen and will be bigger than Thomas ever dreamed.

TheVeronica Mars project raised $2 million US in its first 12 hours, setting a record for the crowd-funding site. As the appeal enters the final week of its fundraising campaign, it has surpassed $4.8 million US.

Amazed at that result, Thomas is debating how to meet one of the promises he made to fansonly half jokingly: snagging Bill Murray as a cast member.

The majority of the Kickstarter donors are devoted fans of the defunct series who donated anywhere from $35 to $50 in return for treats like a peek at the script, a T-shirt or a DVD of the eventual movie.

Different kind of pressure

Thomas had doubts about the Kickstarter fundraising process, he told CBCsQ cultural affairs show, especially after Twitter posts he and actress Kristen Bell sent out about Veronica Mars on the eve of the campaign launch did not get picked up in the way hed hoped.

'I have to do it in a way that rewards fans that have hung in there' Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas

Now, Thomas said he feels a responsibility to write the film (hes currently polishing the script) in a way that pleases fans of the original teen series.

"I do feel a different pressure because this movie is being crowd-funded I dont know that its necessarily a bad thing. There have been many different versions of the Veronica Mars movie in my head over the years. I have to do it in a way that rewards fans that have hung in there," Thomas said.

The series, which ran for almost three years, followed a high school student(Bell) who moonlights as a private detective. She solves mysteries large and small, while dealing with the challenges of growing up in southern California.

Female twist

Aformer high school teacher and a longtime film fan, Thomas had envisioned a teen series involving a male teenaged crime-solver, but at the time he pitched Veronica Mars, he needed a new gimmick to draw interest.

"The big idea, the thing I was interested in exploring, was this modern teenage generation of jaded adolescencewhere theyve seen too much. Theyve had too much information," Thomas said.

"Suddenly, it became more interesting to me if the hero of the piece was a girl. It seemed a more poignant story if the person facing that was a girl."

When the CW network cancelled the series at the end of three seasons, Thomas says he refused to wind down the storyline with a satisfying end, always hoping to continue it into the future.

Now, he'll get his chance in the film. Veronica's story will resume at her high school reunion, where the out-of-practice sleuth will be thrust into another mystery.