By So you all know that a Veronica Mars movie is Kickstarted and happening and still making money. Chances are, it will end up being the most successful Kickstarter of all time. That’s exciting, for a lot of reasons, none of which have to do with Veronica Mars. We here at Flixist are hoping it opens future doors for cancelled/not-quite-completed TV shows to get their day in the sun, the sun being a movie theater.
So here are four shows that, for one reason or another, weren’t properly wrapped up during their TV tenures, and need a goddamn movie to fix it. More importantly, they are shows that we believe could reach the coffers of enough fans that they could come out in much the same way that Veronica Mars will. Yes, there are plenty of other great unfinished shows out there (the vast majority of shows get cancelled prematurely) that should be on this list, but they aren’t, and admittedly, not all of these were actually cancelled (although the majority of them were), but you know what? We have a limited amount of space in our headlines, so there was nothing I could do about it.
What do y’all think of our decisions? Are we right, wrong, crazy, or prophetic? But more important: what shows you think deserve to have a movie Kickstarted/otherwise crowdfunded into existence?
Shut up. I know that Joss Whedon just said this probably wouldn’t happen any time soon. And I know Firefly already got a movie, Serenity, and it pretty much rounded everything out for us. Well, that’s just great, but we should have had multiple seasons of an intrinsic, well constructed, complex, emotionally challenging Joss Whedon television show set in a science-fiction western universe. One movie did not make up for that. If Veronica Mars, which I love and gladly donated to the film fund for, can raise over $3 million then imagine how much a second Firefly film could raise with the show’s rabid fan base who had to replace multiple seasons with one movie. Now I’d argue that the film would have to recast as people have aged quite a bit, but that’s another conversation for after the film is funded. – Matthew Razak
Let’s be perfectly honest: I just want Lie to Me to come back in general. The final episode of the series, which really acted as a mid-season finale, had some really interesting character development and didn’t really tie up much of anything. But if they won’t bring the show back, I would be cool with a (series of) movie(s) too. The basic premise of Lie to Me is interesting enough that it could easily hold a 2 hour (or more) narrative together, and giving Cal Lightman and Jillian Foster a little bit longer to figure things out would be really nice. Given the general lack of craziness and thus budget (versus, say, Firefly, as cool as that would be), I think that this one would be completely gosh-darn feasible on Kickstarter. I mean, I’d sure as hell contribute. – Alec Kubas-Meyer
Party Down is one of those shows that probably had a finite shelf life. Its format kept the charactera at the events they were catering, and all the drama in their lives played out as they served mini-franks to swingin’ old people. HOWEVER, I think that a movie would be acceptable to break format and show us where all our friends in white shirts and pink ties ended up after that last episode. Are we having fun yet? – Sean Walsh
Technically this show wasn’t cancelled, but if there’s any series that deserves to return for a conclusive ending, it’s Genndy Tartokovsky’s Samurai Jack (although you can supplement this blurb with any of his other fine series like Dexter’s Lab, Powerpuff Girls, or his disastrously short lived Clone Wars miniseries). It’s final episode was terribly inconclusive and Jack never got that final fight with AKUUUUUUUU! A film adaptation (under Tartokovsky’s control of course) would just need two be a two hour long fight scene, and just render everything in its beautifully striking art, and everyone will be happy. I mean, The Raid: Redemption was the same way and that turned out to be one of the best action films last year. Samurai Jack deserves that final moment of spotlight. – Nick Valdez