Veronica Mars movie to premiere on anniversary of fundraising campaign

The long-awaited Veronica Mars movie is set to hit theatres on the one-year anniversary of the launch of its groundbreaking fundraising campaign.

Rob Thomas, the creator of the teen detective drama, shattered Kickstarter.com records earlier this year (13) when he called on fans of the cult TV show to donate funds to help him make a movie version.

Thomas easily reached his target of $2 million in less than 24 hours, and raised $5.7 million by the end of the 30-day deadline.

And now devoted viewers are just months away from seeing the final project, simply titled Veronica Mars, as Thomas has announced the film will have a nationwide release one year after the monumental campaign began, on 14 March (14).

Thomas tells Entertainment Weekly, "Warner Bros. had this date circled for quite some time and hoped it would stay open. Luckily, no other teen detective movie decided to open in the middle of March."

The original distribution plan was for the movie to have a limited engagement run in a few cities across the U.S., then go on to Video on Demand and DVD, but due to the high demand and successful test screenings, Warner Bros. executives have decided to release Veronica Mars nationwide and let the moviegoers determine how long it stays in theatres.

Most of the original cast, including Kristen Bell, Jason Dohring, Enrico Colantoni, Krysten Ritter and Ryan Hansen, has returned for the big screen version.