What's Veronica been up to since we last saw her walking into a rainstorm?

And that is the last case that she worked. In the nine years that have taken place in her life since then, she has not worked a case. In fact, she transferred from Hearst College to Stanford and then from Stanford to Columbia Law School and, as we see her again, she's starting to interview for jobs at big law firms in New York. She just got out of Columbia. We learn that not only has she not worked a case since then, she's not seen Logan since then. She's certainly kept up with Wallace [Percy Daggs III] and Mac [Tina Majorino] and she sees her dad [Keith played by Enrico Colantoni] as much as she can, but for the most part, she's put Neptune in the rear view mirror. There's something around page 10 of the movie that's going to bring her back to Neptune. It's like a "Godfather 3" story: No matter how much she thinks she's out, she's going to get pulled back in.

How many stories did you go through before getting to this one with the 10-year reunion storyline?

In terms of fully fleshed out, I've had three different versions of this. There was a version when Joel [Silver, "Veronica Mars" executive producer] first thought there might be an opening at Warner Bros. for a movie done the normal route. It was a couple years after the show went off the air.

There's one which is around Hearst College graduation and I had Keith in prison and Veronica trying to get her dad exonerated for something and a murder happens in Neptune along the lines of the Natalee Holloway style case. It was sort of Natalee Holloway/"Jaws" case because the idea is it happens in Neptune on spring break. At that time -- when it would've been a normal Warner Bros. twentysomething, Joel Silver-backed movie -- I was trying to make it very commercial. You know, twentysomethings on spring break in Neptune and a murder happens.

As we all continued to age, particularly Kristen -- she's the most important one -- I did start fleshing out an idea with Veronica going down that FBI path. As I was breaking that, it became very complicated to have an FBI case back in Neptune and to involve all of our characters. I started feeling like it all strained credulity.

Then this idea that Veronica had walked away from her calling really began to gestate and that's the one I started focusing on and that's the one we're doing. Having Veronica drawn back around the same time as her 10-year high school reunion allowed me a graceful way to include as many of the cast members as possible.