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14 March 2013

Never mind Veronica Mars – let’s kickstart Dawson’s Creek onto the silver screen

A plea to fans to fund a project turning cancelled TV show Veronica Mars into a movie raised $2.5m in 48 hours. While this could very well be the future of how we consume television, Bim Adewunmi isn’t sure why fans, rather than studios, should bear all t

By Bim Adewunmi

Even now, there are still the smouldering embers of excitement all across the social media platforms I use. Fandoms in the age of the internet tend to be a noisy, garrulous lot and one in particular is losing its collective shit. Because Veronica Mars – one of the most beloved cult shows of the 2000s – is to make a comeback on the big screen. The show’s creator and its star, Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell respectively, launched a Kickstarter campaign (more usually the preserve of smaller independent internet-only web series like the The Mis-Adventures of Awkward Black Girl or UK-based Brothers With No Game) to raise $2m over 30 days. It raised $2.5m in 12 hours. According to Thomas and Bell, if the film goes into production, then studio Warner Brothers will help with distribution. The film should land in early 2014. Modern filmmaking, eh? God bless the internet.

 I didn’t watch Veronica Mars first time around. I was at university for one thing, but more importantly I was still really into Gilmore Girls, and I had no extra time to devote to another perky young American, no matter how excellent her surname. (2004 also brought Desperate Housewives and The X-Factor, so, you know, a few turds came with the punchbowl.) Thanks to a period of under-employment a few years back, I’ve rectified the error to a degree, catching stray episodes on daytime television. Tiny slightly hokey details aside – the show is set in a town called Neptune, for example – it’s a good show, and as teen private investigator Veronica, Kristen Bell is a case of perfect casting ably assisted by very good writing. Fans of symmetry will be pleased to know the show’s first season was nominated for Best Network Television Series at the Saturn Awards. On the small screen, and in the hands of Rob Thomas (who went on to co-create and co-write the superlatively good Party Down), it was excellent. But how will it fare at the cinema?

 There are two distinct camps when it comes to making the leap from small screen to silver. A cursory glance at a small sample suggests there is usually no middle ground in this arena: they are either good or astonishingly terrible. Pop quiz: what do The Avengers, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Thunderbirds and On The Buses have in common? Their big screen adventures ended in ignominy and disappointment. On the flip side, consider South Park, The Muppet Show (several times), Firefly and um, Jackass. Pretty great, right? Right. It is a fine art, transferring stories and back-stories that often took years to craft and get right onto a big screen in one 90-minutes-to-two-hours chunk. Sure, you bring along an already dedicated audience (Veronica Mars fans more than most: one guy paid $10,000 into the Kickstarter for the chance to speak in the film), but you also carry with you exceptionally raised expectations. It’s easy to fall short.

Musician Amanda Palmer gave a rapturously-received TED talk in February called ‘the art of asking’. In 2012, Palmer raised $1.2m on Kickstarter after initially asking for $100,000 to support her new album and tour. Later, she would advertise for musicians to come and play for free on the tour; the criticism was almost unanimous. There were questions raised about the accountability of Kickstarter (which had raised almost $350m as at August last year). Quieter voices are also left asking if this is the wave of the future – will we, as consumers be doing this more and more? In a short piece at IndieWire, Bryce J Renninger says we can expect to see more studios using this system, and hinges his way of thinking on a few potent reasons: free publicity, upfront funds, data collection and reduced responsibility on putting out a quality product. Already, showrunners of two American TV series, Terriers  and Men Of A Certain Age have floated the idea of doing similar for their cancelled shows.

What does it all mean for the way we consume television? Clearly, a good swathe of the pop culture-consuming audience has no problem giving cash to projects they love – it’s in our nature to love irrationally, after all. But is the Kickstarter method the way to do it?  For sure, Veronica Mars’ superfans didn’t need much persuading to pony up some spare cash for the show they once loved. Will this method work for unknown, unbeloved new ideas struggling to stand out in the Hollywood landscape? Put it this way – would you lay down £25 if you read the synopsis for recent Hollywood megahit Argo on a Kickstarter page? I loved Argo, but I can’t honestly say that I would have. And for that matter, precisely how many films can you comfortably make for $2.5m these days? That’s budget filmmaking on a scale that we don’t see too much of, even in our recession-hit times. And anyway, fan or no, isn’t it just a tad cheeky that we are subsidising big-time studio Warner Bros? Perhaps it’s churlish of me to feel this way.

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Of course, if this turns out to be the beginning of a Brave New Vanguard of crowd-funded Hollywood entertainment, may I suggest one little-known and only modestly influential TV show ripe for big screen glory? Dawson’s Creek, m’lud. All that angst, nicely matured via a bankruptcy (Dawson), an affair (Pacey, obvs), an unexpected windfall plus the re-appearance of an exciting ex (Joey, of course) and a new and noble quest for equal marriage (Jack, campaigning alongside his adopted daughter, whose mother Jen, died in the show finale). Listen, Kevin Williamson – call me. We can knock this script out in three months.

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