It Took 'Veronica Mars' Movie Less Than 10 Hours to Reach Its $2 Million Goal

If you paid any attention to Kickstarter on Wednesday, you probably already know all about the immediate, meteoric success of the Veronica Mars movie project. It is now officially successful.

If you paid any attention to Kickstarter on Wednesday, you probably already know all about the immediate, meteoric popularity of the Veronica Mars movie project. It is now officially successful, at least in Kickstarter terms. Just before 10 p.m., the project hit its $2 million goal. It broke records, and it is now one step closer to being a real Hollywood movie. Supporters of crowd-funded art projects are surely happy about the end result. Warner Brothers is thrilled.

Based on Kickstarter's guidelines, The Veronica Mars project will get the money it raised. The adventure is far from over, however. For one thing, the filmmakers have said that even if they hit the goal, there's no guarantee the movie will get made. (They don't get to keep the money if they don't deliver the project.) However, there are 30 days left on the Kickstarter meaning the project can continue to collect money as long as backers are willing to contribute. Because its passed its goal, the Veronica Mars project will get to keep whatever it raises, and it's not so hard to figure out that the end sum will be much more than $2 million. It hit the $1 million mark in just four hours — a new Kickstarter record — $2 million in ten and, at the time of this writing, is well on its way to $3 million. Some are already speculating that it'll hit $10 million. That feels low.

Kickstarter's seen crazy successful projects before, but this one's different. The only other two projects to make up into the eight-digit territory is the $10.2 million Pebble watch project and the $8.6 million Ouya video game console project. Those are both pretty cool, independent tech projects led by enterprising young geeks who are trying to catch a break. Veronica Mars is basically just another Hollywood project. As The Atlantic Wire's own Richard Lawson pointed out not long after the project started, "If this was some little indie movie it'd be different, but again Warner Bros. will be the ones distributing it and, theoretically, pocketing any extra money that comes in."

That's no speculative situation anymore. It's happening. Whether people realize it or not, Veronica Mars could be the first big Hollywood hit that puts fans in double jeopardy, though you do get tickets to the premiere if you forked over a few thousand bucks. Or, assuming you haven't donated any money to Hollywood just yet, you could just sit back, watch the superfans do their thing and just pay your $12 to watch it in theaters, like normal mortals do.