Just a couple of months ago, “Veronica Mars” creator Rob Thomas said the prospect of a feature film version of the cult TV show was “not dead” saying, “I did have a treatment and a pitch, with which I went to Warner Bros. and [Mars producer] Joel Silver and said, ‘Here is the fastball version of the movie, the big studio version of the movie that I think we can make.’ And I think they did one of their brand-awareness surveys and were like, ‘We don’t know if we can make money with that.’ So it’s been back-burnered. But I still want to do it. I’m still happy to do it. We’re still looking into it.”
Well, apparently everyone involved has looked into it and the answer is “no.” Speaking with MTV while doing the press rounds for “Splice,” Joel Silver has very candidly revealed the reasons why a movie version of the show is not forthcoming: “A movie like that would be driven by home video [sales]. The home video itself didn’t do that well so they [Warner Bros.] didn’t feel there was a need or an audience for [a film].” Bummer. He goes on to say that if the fan base had been there, the show would probably still be on the air instead of being canceled after three seasons.
A “Veronica Mars” feature always seemed like a bit of a longshot idea. The show was instrumental in launching the career of Kristen Bell, and had some interesting smaller turns by people like Amanda Seyfried, Ken Marino and Krysten Ritter. But as Silver notes, while the fan base was devoted, it wasn’t enough to keep the show going, thus making a feature pretty much unlikely.