'Veronica Mars' Sets Premiere Date for Revival on Hulu

Hulu is hyping up its revival of Veronica Mars with a teaser of the first three seasons before they hit the streaming platform.

Hulu is bringing back the beloved drama Veronica Mars at the end of July, and before that, the platform is making the original three seasons available. On Saturday, Hulu released a teaser for the first three seasons to get new and old fans alike hooked in the lead-up to the new season.

The teaser is three-minutes long, and does its best to sell the existing seasons of Veronica Mars, which aired from 2004 to 2007 on The CW. The cult classic show starred Kristen Bell as its title character, and featured her working as a private investigator in the hopes of untying one grand mystery.

The teaser promises the first three seasons will hit Hulu on July 1. It also repackages the show as a Hulu Original, since the streaming service has now bought the rights to it.

Hulu unveiled the teaser on Saturday at the ATX Festival in Austin, Texas before putting it up online. It also announced a release date for the fourth season — July 26.

That gives fans just under five weeks to either re-watch or get acquainted with the first three seasons of the show. As a mystery, this will likely be important, even for longtime fans. Veronica Mars was never a huge hit in Nielsen ratings, but it was critically acclaimed, and its fandom was dedicated and outspoken.

That fandom has been fighting to revive the show in one way or another for years now. After the series was canceled, series creator Rob Thomas wrote a feature film to continue and wrap up the existing plot threads. When Warner Bros. turned down the script, Bell and Thomas started a Kickstarter campaign to get it maid, and fans provided the funding.

The crowdfunding effort raised $2 million in under 11 hours, attaining Thomas and Bell's goal easily. Ultimately, that figure rose to $5.7 million, and the movie was released in 2013.

Now, Veronica Mars is getting a third chance thanks to Hulu, and hopes are high. The timing of the announcement lined up perfectly, as fans learned on Friday that Bell's current series, The Good Place, will come to an end after Season 4. Series creator Michael Schur made the announcement on Twitter, revealing that it was a creative choice not a budgetary one.

For fans looking for a new fix of Bell, Veronica Mars may be just what they're looking for. The first three seasons of the show hit Hulu on July 1. The new season premieres on July 26.