The first eight minutes of Friday’s Veronica Mars, the feature film funded by Kickstarter and based on the cult-hit Warner Bros. Television series from a decade ago, is now online at Fandango — complete with a surprising revelation about the death of a familiar character, and a pair of guest stars.Frozen star Kristen Bell stars in the film, which reunites her with her small-screen castmates Enrico Colantoni, Percy Daggs III, Francis Capra, Jason Dohring and Tina Majorino, along with Jerry O’Connell, Jamie Lee Curtis and others.The film, which had been discussed and teased almost since the day the last episode of the WB/CW series wrapped seven years ago, finally came together only after rights-holders Warner Bros. told creator Rob Thomas that they would foot distribution and promotion costs for the picture if he could manage to wrangle a $2 million production budget from donors via Kickstarter (and, presumably, get his cast to work for the necessary rates, but that was always a given). In less than a day, the production raised its $2 million and shortly after that was officially greenlit by Warners with a final production budget, raised entirely via crowdfunding, of around $5 million.Veronica Mars will be the first major studio release to be simultaneously released in a limited theatrical run along with virtually all streaming video services on the same day (Friday). It’s not yet known when the feature-rich Blu-ray and DVD, also offered as Kickstarter rewards, will be available.
