Veronica Mars fans, if you pray, pray hard. And if you don’t, start, because the cult fave’s long-rumored movie version is about to enter the anxiety-producing phase known as do-or-die-time.

“I’m preparing the pitch now — literally now,” Mars’ main man, Rob Thomas, told me this morning. “I hope to go in and talk to [executive producer] Joel Silver and [Warner Bros.] in the next week or two to see if they’re interested.”
But first, Thomas has to iron out the endgame of the plot, which, as I first reported last fall, focuses on Veronica solving a crime in college rather than as an FBI agent. “I haven’t figured it out yet,” he says of the final act. “That’s what I’m working on now. It’s close. A few key details left to solve.”

Thomas is quick to caution, however, that completing an outline and pitching the studio are just two steps of a much larger, more daunting process. “I have some fear that Veronica Mars fans believe that the chief hurdle in getting the movie made is my writing it,” Thomas confesses. “Unfortunately, that’s only one of several hurdles. I’m going to give it my best shot and let the chips fall where they may.

“It’s entirely possible I won’t have an answer at the end of the pitch,” he continues. “They will want to consider [the pitch], look at some numbers — whatever it is people on the business side do — and then they’ll give me some sort of response. Then, if they want to move forward, there’s the deal-making that’ll need to go on.”

Surprisingly, one of the project’s primary selling points won’t be tagging along to the meeting. “Kristen [Bell] will not be joining me,” he says. “I’m sure she has no desire to see how the sausage is made.”

Perhaps not, but I think I know what K. Bell would like to see: a comments section overflowing with messages of support and encouragement for Thomas as his Mars mission approaches stage: critical. That’s your cue to get busy writing!

At the tail end of this winter’s television critic’s event, Rob Thomas, who has resurrected his 1998 TV series CUPID for another go-around on ABC, announced that he’s currently working on a VERONICA MARS feature film (based on his short-lived UPN/CW show), now that his new series order has been reduced from thirteen episodes to eight episodes.

“That means I have time to write the VERONICA MARS movie,” he says. “But my writing the movie is half the battle. Someone else has to pay for it. Joel Silver does have a certain pile of money. He called on me saying ‘Can we do this now?’ Kristen wants to do it. Joel wants to do it and I want to do it. For me, that’s the next project.”

Although he wouldn’t reveal exactly what the story would be, he did tell iF, “it’s 70 percent broken in my head.”

“I’ve been struggling with this one plot point and I’m hopeful to figure that out,” he adds. “I watched the final episode of the series a few weeks ago and there were a lot of gaps and the plotting for the original came to me. I mean for the movie, I’m feeling like I’m on the right track now. But I don’t want to give that away yet.

In terms of cast, Thomas says he’s talked with Jason Dohring, Enrico Colantoni and Kristen Bell.

And while there were always talks of the character of Veronica Mars ending up at the F.B.I., he says that’s not where the movie will be heading.

“The one thing that I will say is where it will pick up,” says Thomas. “I know we did that F.B.I. ‘what if’ thing, but we would not go to that place. I think it would open just days before the Hearst College Graduation. So Veronica would be sort of at the end of her college career.

An eclipse eliminated everyone’s powers, giving HRG the upper hand with Elle and Sylar, stranding the Petrelli brothers in Haiti with a crazy man and reverting Daphne back into a polio-riddled Kansan. Thankfully, Seth Green and Breckin Meyer showed up to make sense of it all.

This week on Heroes it’s time for the second half of the eclipse, which means the heroes and villains don’t have powers until about halfway through, when the eclipse passes, all the powers return, and nothing that happened over these past two episodes matters. I suppose last week’s interesting episode was an anomaly. If you’re still not convinced this episode is bad – Maya returns.
Don’t Miss

Rather than run for cover, Sylar (Zachary Quinto) and Elle (Kristen Bell) decide to have sex in the house where, only moments earlier, HRG handed them a two-by-four of whoop-ass. HRG (Jack Coleman) plays a game of coitus interruptus with a rifle and he gets a bullet into Elle’s leg before the villains can flee.

Sandra Bennet goes against her husband’s better judgment and takes Claire (Hayden Panettiere) to the hospital. Claire seizes and begins to flatline, giving me hope that they might just kill her off. Sandra calls HRG to come, but he gets distracted in his quest to find and kill Sylar and Elle.

That showdown takes place in a supermarket where Sylar puts Elle into an elevator so he can save her and face HRG alone. A fight ensues, and Sylar does a lot of taunting while getting his butt kicked. Finally, HRG picks up a boxcutter and slices Sylar’s throat open. Oh my God, they killed Sylar! You bastards!

In less tragic news, things don’t go so well at the hospital and the doctors pronounce that Claire is dead. But then the eclipse passes and Claire is brought back to life. Damn it, we were so close. On the bright side, it means Sylar isn’t actually dead and the villains can use their powers to torture Sandra and HRG and kidnap Claire. HRG tries to wiggle out by saying that Angela and Arthur both lied about being Sylar’s parents.

Read more over at BuddyTV.com

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