Six Years Later, You Can Finally Stream All of Kristen Bell’s Iconic Detective Series In One Place
The early 2000s was an incredible time for teen-focused entertainment, especially on television. Shows like The O.C., One Tree Hill, Dawson’s Creek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Smallville, and more dominated the landscape with many remaining popular to this day. Thanks to streaming, old fans are reconnecting with the series in a new way while new fans are discovering these modern classics for the first time, giving them entirely new levels of popularity. But for one of the most iconic series of the era, watching the entirety of the series on one streaming platform has been a little tricky—until now.
As of May 1st, the Veronica Mars movie has been added to Netflix. The addition of the film completes the streamer’s offerings when it comes to the beloved, Kristen Bell starring series. Earlier this year, the streamer added the first three seasons of the series—the ones that aired as part of its original run from 2004 to 2007 and then followed that with the revival fourth season from 2019 that had previously been exclusive to Hulu. That left the 2014 feature film but now it’s been added, which makes now a perfect time to binge.
The Veronica Mars Movie Is Largely Standalone (And Was Truly For the Fans)
The Veronica Mars film is one of those fascinating Hollywood stories that shows the genuine power of fandom. After the cancellation of Veronica Mars in 2007, the story wasn’t really over. Several storylines and character arcs remained unfinished, which prompted fans to petition The CW by sending more than 10,000 Mars candy bars to the network in the hope of getting them to renew the series. It didn’t work, but series creator Rob Thomas wrote a feature film script that would continue things, though that didn’t move forward either, at least not until almost seven years later. In 2013, Thomas and Bell launched a Kickstarter campaign to get the film funded. It was highly successful and led to Warner Bros. ultimately greenlighting the project.
Veronica Mars opened in theaters in March 2014. The film functioned as both a continuation of the original series and as something new in that it picked up nine years after the series finale and saw Veronica Mars (Bell) having moved away from Neptune, California to live in New York City. However, when her ex Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring) is accused of murdering his girlfriend, he calls on Veronica for help, but she soon ends up involved in the investigation as she learns how corrupt the local authorities are. It’s a story that caught fans up on their favorite characters but also offered a whole new mystery—perfect for newcomers to the franchise.
The series would go on to get a revival in 2019 and more or less picks up after the events of the movie, but the movie isn’t necessary to jump into the fourth season. However, everything comes together better with all three parts—the original series, the movie, and the revival—altogether. Now, the entire collection is streaming on Netflix for the first time. It makes for a perfect binge if you’re in the mood for mystery.
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