'Veronica Mars' Kickstarter Ends With a Bang

Earth to Mars! Or, rather, we should say, "Mars to Earth!"

We thought we understood when Rob Thomas kicked off his Veronica Mars movie project on Kickstarter how ecstatic the fandom was for the return of their beloved characters, but no one could've seen this coming.

Within 12 hours of launching, the project had smashed Kickstarter records by raising the entirety of its $2 million goal, and two premiere parties (the prize for a $5,000 donation) were already planned for Austin. And then things got serious.

By April 2, Thomas realized that another Kickstarter record was within reach: the most backers for any project before this one was Double Fine Adventure's final tally of 87,142 – nothing to sneeze at. But by the time the VM project's crowdfunding campaign wrapped up at 10pm last night, it had raised …

$5,702,153 from 91,585 backers. Which, for those doing the math, is 285% of its goal and makes it the third-most-funded campaign in Kickstarter history. What's more, almost $100,000 of that poured in in the final two hours.

A massive crowd packed onto the porch at the Dog & Duck Pub on Guadalupe to count down the last leg of the campaign. And right after 10pm, after counting down the last 30 seconds and a enjoying a round of rapturous applause from the crowd, Thomas stood up on a bench, iPad in hand (showing off the final count), to say a few words.

"In my mind, I thought, 'We can do $3 million… Anything above $5 million is a huge success," he said. "We're going to be able to do a terrific movie."

"Thank you so much," he said as he was stepping down. "Thank you," a crowd member countered. But wait, there's one more thing to be thankful for:

"By the way, we're shooting it very soon."

Be cool, soda pop.