This summer marks ten years since Scott Pilgrim Vs The World hit the big screen. Edgar Wright’s whizz-bang adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel series film cast Michael Cera as the lovelorn slacker, forced to fight the seven evil exes of his new girlfriend Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), imagined as videogame-inspired beat-downs. Though it didn’t hit big commercially, the film was a vibrant and visionary work that stands out even among Wright’s brilliant filmography – and it sounds like there could potentially be another life for the story on screen in future.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Wright mentioned that there have been talks about an animated Scott Pilgrim project. “There’s some plans – and there’s nothing official yet – but there are some plans to revisit the material in an animation way,” he said. “We’ve been talking with Bryan and with Jared [LeBoff, executive producer] for a while [about]: What if we did something with the books in anime form? It’s being discussed as we speak.” Some interesting things to unpack there – firstly, that it sounds like all of this is in very early stages and by no means confirmed. Secondly, it’s unclear whether it’ll be a new telling of the same Scott Pilgrim story, or something that takes place elsewhere in the timeline. The end of the film (and the books) offers some nice closure, but does set up – SPOILER WARNING – Scott's hopeful future with Ramona. Finally, an anime-style Scott Pilgrim project would be fantastic, and totally fitting considering so much of the visual styling in the film (and comics) draws from that world.
Also in the EW piece, creator Bryan Lee O’Malley said: “I would like to revisit the characters [in comic form] and see what they’re up to. I sketched Scott early in the pandemic with a huge beard. I think that would be a funny image.” He’s revisited the Scott Pilgrim books before – originally, they were published in paperback in black-and-white, before being reissued in hardback colourised editions. If the whole thing sounds tentative for now, we can all agree – more Scott Pilgrim, in any form, would be a KO. Now, can they reissue the side-scrolling brawler video game please?