Bryan Fuller Talks Possible PUSHING DAISIES Kickstarter

In the wake of the rousing success of the Veronica Mars kickstarter campaign, many Hollywood types have been looking at the crowdsourcing website as a way to secure the financing for projects that the studios seem unwilling to pony up the money for. Writer/producer Bryan Fuller is one of those who are and is looking at Kickstarter to fund a possible film revival of his fan favorite, but shortlived, series Pushing Daisies.

Pushing Daisies premiered in the fall of 2007 to strong ratings and positive critical notices and centered around a pie-maker, Ned (Lee Pace) who discovered that he could raise the dead with just a single touch. The drawback to his power was that if the resurrected person stayed alive for more than one minute, someone else in the vicinity would die. A second touch from Ned would end their resurrection and make their death permanent. Understandably, this lead to complications when Ned brought back to life his childhood crush, Charlotte “Chuck” Charles (Anna Friel), and then the two began to fall for each other.

Unfortunately, the show’s first season was interrupted by the writer’s strike and when it returned in the fall of 2008 it failed to bring its audience back with it, leading ABC To cancel the show. Although Fuller tried to wrap up the show’s many storylines in a short epilogue at the end of its final episode, fans were looking for more.

But speaking to Den of Geek, Fuller stated that if he were to go the Kickstarter route to bring the show back in the form of a feature film, he already has a story idea –

On the subject of reanimation, what can you tell us about your Kickstarter plan to resurrect Pushing Daisies as a zombie movie?

If we were able to pull off the Kickstarter, there’s a very fun zombie film that starts with a flash-flood in a cemetery and basically is about those denizens of that cemetery having to kill Ned before he can kill them, so it’s a different kind of zombie movie.

Fast or slow zombies?

I think fast, I think because it’s the Pushing Daisies rules so Chuck is, you know, alive. Are you a fast zombie or a slow zombie person?

Fans might find that story idea to be a bit similar to what was glimpsed of a planned comic book/graphic novel extension that was in development for a time but was placed in limbo after its publisher, Wildstorm, was absorbed into DC Comics. The first two pages of that project were released in a black and white art and lettered form with the first page also being released in full color but no lettering.

Personally, I would love to see a return of the show in a big screen story. But I have to think that to realize the show’s highly stylized look, partly achieved through CGI, would cost more than the $2 million that Veronica Mars looked to raise. Now granted that project ultimately pulled in close to $6 million, so there is a precedence for that kind of money being generated.