Warner Bros. Entertainment
There are plenty of cult television series with underdog stories. After Firefly was cancelled, Joss Whedon wrangled the capital to create Serenity, a movie that tied up all the loose ends left by the show. Seven years after Arrested Development was given the boot by Fox, Netflix picked it back up and gave the show new life.
But the biggest comeback in television history has to be awarded to Veronica Mars, the little TV show that could. Last spring, Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas blew up the Internet when he set up a Kickstarter to raise money for a movie that would wrap up the series. It seemed everyone in the TV and film industry had a fit about how crowd sourcing could change the way Hollywood operates. (As it turns out, aside from a few other successes, nothing much has changed so far.)
Now, with less than two months left until Veronica Mars premieres in movie theaters around the country, The CW announced a spinoff web series to air on its CW Seed website. Ryan Hansen will star in the web show as his character Dick Casablancas and Thomas will be involved in the production. Now that the fans have revived Veronica Mars, it seems she won’t die again — and we couldn’t be happier.
As Veronica Mars, Firefly/Serenity, and Arrested Development have proved, cancelling a TV show is not necessarily the true death of a series — especially when fans make their voices heard. Television series can be resurrected into movies, Netflix series, or web series. Of these, web series are the most important because they don’t require as much investment.
If the Veronica Mars web show is popular and successful, there’s a possibility other cancelled TV shows could go this route. (Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.) Whether or not Veronica Mars will live on past the web series, it goes to show how much influence the fans’ money — and voices — can have in Hollywood.
