Personally, I’m not ready to accept that it’s been almost 12 years since Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (pictured above). But I’m very ready to accept the news that an anime version of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim graphic novels is in the works at Netflix.
O’Malley and BenDavid Grabinski (Are You Afraid of the Dark?) will write and executive produce the adaptation. If—and it’s still an “if”—it goes to series, they’ll serve as showrunners. Again, if it becomes a show, Science SARU will be the animators, and Abel Gongora will direct.
Is this the perfect way to adapt Scott Pilgrim, even though we already had an excellent Scott Pilgrim adaptation? Signs point to yes.
As noted by The Hollywood Reporter, who broke the news, “bringing the graphic novels to anime form is an acknowledgment of some of the graphic novels’ Japanese roots, as O’Malley’s big influence for his work were various manga, the Japanese comic book form.”
The Scott Pilgrim series consists of six graphic novels, released from 2004 to 2010, which chart the adventures of one Scott Pilgrim, a slacker musician who must defeat the seven evil exes of his love, Ramona Flowers, and learn a few things about himself along the way.
In the movie, Michael Cera played Scott, Mary Elizabeth Winstead played Ramona, and the exes included Brandon Routh, Mae Whitman, and Chris Evans. It’s a good time, that movie, and covered a lot of the comics—but an animated series would have even more room to play.
This is all still very in development, but here’s hoping Scott and Sex Bob-omb will return for an encore. And that the music in this potential series will be as good as it was in the film. Let us never forget the Crash and the Boys classic, “I’m So Sad, So Very Very Sad.”
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