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.

It’s sounding more and more likely that a “Veronica Mars” movie might actually happen and I think it’s got to do a lot to do with who the producer on the thing is, Joel Silver. Silver can pretty much snap his fingers and have Warner Bros lick his boots if he’d wanted them to – and you’ll have noticed how shiny his shoes are.

Silver loved the show. He was a huge fan of it – and Kristen Bell (read into that what you will). I’m sure he’s one of the driving forces that’s helped inch the movie forward.

So what do we know? Well, we know Rob Thomas is writing it. We know Kristen Bell has committed to starring in it. And we know Silver is dead-keen to roar at the WB when they turn the project down.

Michael Ausiello reported this week that the film wouldn’t take it’s cue from the unsuccessful season 4 pilot pitch that saw Mars joining the FBI. Instead, it’ll be set not-too-long after the events of Season 3 – with the cutesy tweenage investigator in university.

“The FBI scenario was more of a ‘What if…?’ aimed at getting us a fourth season [before the show was canceled],” Mars boss Rob Thomas tells Ausiello.”I would want to bring back our key players, and it would be tough to believe that the FBI stationed Veronica in Neptune.”

I, for one, would love to see a “Veronica Mars” movie. So much spunk there.

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