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Cannes 2013: Surprises & Notable Absence ...

The obsessives' guide to contemporary cinema via film discussion, news, reviews, features, nostalgia, movie music, soundtracks, DVDs and more.

Interviews

Congratulations? Over 90,000 People Gift $5.7 Million To Warner Bros. For The 'Veronica Mars' Movie

By Kevin Jagernauth
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April 15, 2013 10:41 AM
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10 Comments

News

Okay, the headline isn't quite accurate -- it's actually the show's creator Rob Thomas who is getting the $5.7 million from the highly publicized and grounding breaking Kickstarter campaign for the "Veronica Mars" movie. It's nearly three times the $2 million he was initially seeking, but perhaps more importantly, with the campaign over, and it being wildly, hugely successful, the question now becomes: Did Warner Bros. just get away with having customers pay for their movie?

By Kevin Jagernauth
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March 21, 2013 9:18 AM
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1 Comment

News

Yes, the "Veronica Mars" movie is real and actually happening. And we'll leave the debate regarding the Kickstarter campaign behind for now, and focus on the film itself. Expectations are sky high for creator Rob Thomas who admits he has toyed with the idea of tweaking the show, but ultimately concluded that he has to "give the people what they want," and he's now revealed a few key morsels that fans of the show will undoubtedly scrutinize and obsess over as the movie heads into production this summer.

By Diana Drumm
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March 18, 2013 9:42 AM
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1 Comment

News

After Warner Bros. promised to back a "Veronica Mars" movie if fans raised $2 million within a month and the Kickstarter campaign proved more than successful (it currently sits at $3.6 million raised), there is no official word on whether the studio will help fund the film (they have agreed to distribute and market the effort) or if the Kickstarter campaign will make enough for it to be a fully self-sufficient production. Regardless, they have already raised well beyond the $2 million they sought, and the production team plans to use the additional money to make an even better product.

By Oliver Lyttelton
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March 14, 2013 10:59 AM
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19 Comments

Features

Yesterday, fans of "Veronice Mars" woke up to a surprise announcement that they likely never thought would have been possible. Writer/producer Rob Thomas and actress Kristen Bell unveiled a project on Kickstarter to raise funding for a film version of their cult UPN/CW high-school-set detective series that ran from 2004 to 2007. The show was a critical hit, but never much of a ratings smash, and the ax fell after the third season. But ever since, there's been some talk of a movie spin-off or continuation, but it never seemed quite realistic, particular given that sales figures for DVD sets of the show weren't very good.

By Kevin Jagernauth
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March 13, 2013 11:01 AM
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8 Comments

Television

Ever since being taken off the air in 2006, fans of "Veronica Mars" have been clamoring, calling and pleading for its return. A couple of years back, Warner Bros. even went so far as to set up an email address to handle the requests they were getting, and now it looks like the one shot that devotees of the program has been asking for is here.

By Jeff Otto
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January 30, 2012 10:20 AM
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1 Comment

News

From TV star to movie star and back again, Kristen Bell is keeping busy. After breaking out as the beloved TV heroine Veronica Mars, Bell has tackled film roles like “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “When In Rome” while continuing to dabble on the small screen now and again. In the past, most actors shifted from TV to features and never looked back, but the landscape is changing and Bell is happy to take advantage. Her new Showtime series opposite Don Cheadle, “House Of Lies,” debuted earlier this month to very positive reviews and her latest film role, as reporter Jill Gerard in Ken Kwapis’ political comedy, “Big Miracle,” hitting theaters this Friday. She also just finished up Dax Shepherd’s second directorial effort “Outrun,” which she describes as “in the vein of the Burt Reynolds movies of the ‘70s” and plays Supergirl opposite Justin Long’s Robin in one of the comedy shorts from the upcoming “Movie 43.”