Scott Pilgrim’s Progress: Bryan Lee O'Malley And Edgar Wright Roundtable

Bryan Lee O'Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series has grown from having a small cult following to being one of the most talked about properties of the summer. Of course, this is in large thanks to Edgar Wright’s (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) upcoming film adaptation. In anticipation of Scott Pilgrim’s film and video game debut we sat down to talk with O’Malley and Wright about the world of Scott Pilgrim, the duo’s involvement in the Ubisoft developed game, and how Resident Evil helped inspire Shaun of the Dead.

Bryan Lee O'Malley

Edgar Wright

The game looks great. How much of it have you guys been able to play?

O’Malley: I haven’t played this new build yet. [Looking at a nearby demo stand.] Oh, my God, that art is amazing. I played it at E3 and I thought it was really cool. I couldn’t hear the sound because they had the sound turned down, so I think it will feel little different today. I was more involved than Edgar in the initial development because he was involved in this little film project of his. I basically went out to Montreal to meet with the Ubisoft team who worked on this and we just talked about what we wanted and what we didn’t want. What we wanted was this. [Points to the game.]

Wright: I think one of the things that was obvious given the outlook in the books was that the game didn’t need to ape the film. You don’t need to see a pixilated version of the actors, you want to see the artwork from the comics. The books lend themselves really well to this format anyway.

O’Malley: Ostensibly, it’s a game of the film, but really it’s more like a third leg for the Scott Pilgrim franchise.

What was your general involvement during the development of the game?

Wright: In terms of development, when Ubisoft came to us, I was busy doing the film. We didn’t give them footage from the film, but we did get them the entire storyboards for the film, some of which have Bryan’s artwork and some of the expanded stuff, which my brother Oscar Wright drew. It’s weird, but it’s like Bryan said, it’s like another leg. The books are like the canon and the film is like a bizzaro version of the books, and the game has all manner of alternate realities within it.

O’Malley: Our ethos for the game was that we wanted it to look like a team of Japanese developers had gotten a hold of the books and didn’t really understand what was going on in them and made a game.

Wright: [Laughs] It’s a second language video game.

O’Malley: But that’s what I wanted. I wanted something fun; something that felt like the kind of games I played as a kid, but was amped up for modern time and for the Scott Pilgrim universe.

Wright: As we were filming, I saw some of the character designs and a gameplay video, and it so surpassed my expectations of what I thought it could be. I started talking to the Ubisoft people and asked, “You know all these sound effects? Can we use some of these?” So we actually took some effects and put them into the film, and in fact, some graphics from the game appear in the film as well. So it was nice for me to sort of step away and then when it all came together I was like, “Oh s***, that’s cool. Maybe we can do something with this.” So we sort of threw it all back together.

What was it like working with Ubisoft on this game?

O’Malley: Great. I bought a PSP Go last year because I was like, “that sounds cool.” It wasn’t very cool, but actually what it was, was all the guys on the Scott Pilgrim game were playing Monster Hunter on it. They were like, “I’ve played 300 hours on this.” And I was like, “that sounds nice.” I tried playing it, but I got too busy with the book. But I put the PSP Go in the book as a kind of “remember I have this thing. Maybe I’ll play it someday.” But I was also playing this game Half-Minute Hero, and it’s amazing. [To Wright.] You would like that. Every adventure takes 30 seconds, and you have to run, run, run and kill the dragon and whatnot, but it all happens really fast.

Wright: I think I saw a few on this press tour that I’m going to have to get. I’m going to fall off the wagon.

O’Malley: I’m looking forward to playing this game actually. [Points to the Scott Pilgrim demo stand.] Especially with four people. I’m doing this event at Giant Robot in LA next month, where I’m just going to play the game with my fans. That’s the end of my tour. It’s gong to be so f***ing relaxing. I’m just going to get drunk and play games with my fans. That’s on August 21st.

Since the inspiration for this game is sidescrolling beat ‘em ups, do you have a favorite game from when you were younger?

O’Malley: River City Ransom is always the keystone for the books and for this game. Everyone on the team at Ubisoft was like, “River City Ransom, River City Ransom!” So that was pretty much it. It ends up looking like the old Konami arcade games: Ninja Turtles, The Simpson’s Arcade game, and stuff like that.

Wright: There was one called Renegade that was another side scrolling game, but it was a warriors version, kind of like Double Dragon or something. That was another game I remember they looked at.

The book and the film have two different endings. How did you guys approach making the different endings for the game?

O’Malley: We were going to do a lot originally, but I think we got down to about six or seven, which is still pretty good. I wrote the endings. I wanted to stick to this old-school vibe, so there isn’t a lot of dialogue. The end of the game is just a bunch of onscreen text, Nintendo style, kind of Ninja Gaiden style. But I tried to write each ending in a different style, so some of them are kind of stupid, but in an intentional and fun way.

Wright: It’s funny just watching the attract mode to the game because one of the things that inspired the film were not so much the gameplay, but the cutscenes or the opening titles from games that me and my brother would watch. They were just bananas. And Ubisoft has done such a good job with making the cutscenes in the Scott Pilgrim game look completely bananas. There is even a shot in the film where the disco ball gets shattered and the two pieces come together showing the characters in the shards. Someone asked me if that was a Superman II reference, but it was actually supposed to be like in Mortal Kombat or Marvel vs. Capcom where it goes “Versus!” before a match.

O’Malley: I was completely zeroed in on having an attract mode for the game just because it’s so classic and they don’t do that anymore, so we had to really fight for it. “Please let us do this!”

It seems like it would have also made sense to make a fighting game out of Scott Pilgrim, was that ever considered?

O’Malley: I don’t know. For this game – I don’t know if we’ll make more games – but it was always our idea to make this one into a side-scrolling multiplayer brawler.

Now that you have one game made, do you have any interest in making other games?

O’Malley: I would love to. Now that I have this book done, I’m going to play some games. I can’t believe this game got made. I love it. I remember watching Paul Robertson videos in 2006 and just thinking “holy s***, why isn’t this a game?” And I think thousands of millions of people saw those and thought the same thing, so I don’t know why it took so long to make one that looks this much like his videos.

It’s got to be interesting to hear this property for the first time as well because until now Scott Pilgrim has been locked in the silent medium of comics. How did you go about picking the cult chip tune punk band Anamanaguchi to do the music for the game?

O’Malley: Edgar and I were both huge fans of Anamanaguchi from the beginning, so when Ubisoft told me that Paul Robertson was on board I was like “Oh my God! You guys are serious about this.” I wasn’t really sure before that point, but then I was like, “Let’s hire Anamanaguchi.” Five minutes later they were emailing them, and the band was on board the next day. I don’t think [lead songwriter] Peter Berkman had heard of the books at that point, which was like a year ago, but he instantly loved them. He really ragingly loved them, which is awesome because now we’re buddies. They did 48 tracks for this game. They’ve done more music for this game than they have in their whole musical career and it’s all amazing. It’s the most amazing stuff I’ve ever heard in my entire life. I’ve been listening to it nonstop since they sent it to me.

Did either of you expect the books or the film to explode in popularity like it has?

Wright: We all worked our bums off on the film, and at some point you just have to start showing it. I think the best way to get the word out is to let the film speak for itself. The reaction at the screenings have been loudly applauding. It’s cool. I’m sure there are some fans who would have liked a six film adaptation, but there is something nice about having everything climax in 2010. The final book is out. The game is coming out. The film is coming out. I think really it’s just a tribute to what Bryan has accomplished in the last seven years.

O’Malley: I don’t think I could have imagined how big it would be. Even if I was told in advance how big it would be, I don’t think I could have conceptualized it. It’s pretty big. Especially this year, but we all hoped from the beginning that it would be well-received.

Are you guys playing any games right now?

O’Malley: To be honest three things have stopped me from playing games these last few months. One, I was doing this f***ing comic book. Two, my Xbox got stolen from my old house. I was in the middle of moving and some people broke in, stole my Xbox and my TV and all my games. I’d just bought Red Dead Redemption the night before, but that didn’t get stolen because it was in the other room. The third thing is, I bought Dragon Quest IX to play on the plane on the way here, but I accidentally had it delivered to my old house so I haven’t gotten it yet. So I haven’t been able to play any games in months. It’s horrible.

Wright: I have a long history with games, but I’ve had to give them up because my productivity just plummets when they’re around. I’ve been lapse for a long time. Usually my game playing is going over to my brother’s place and playing stuff there. But for me, it’s kind of like having an Ouija board; sometimes you just got to get it out of the house. It’s like a black hole, I just don’t get anything done when they’re around, and I’m sure I’m speaking to the wrong people here. Weirdly one of the things that inspired Shaun of the Dead is that I remember when Resident Evil 3 came out and I played it for like 72 hours straight. My girlfriend at the time was away for the weekend, and we were going to buy the game when she got back, because she wanted to play it as well. But I folded and rented it. It was like a dirty secret. I told her later, “I did something bad this weekend. I rented Resident Evil 3 and I played it for three days. She sounded really betrayed like, “Baby, why?” But I remember waking up on a Sunday morning after playing it for 72 hours and walking across the street all red eyes and blurry, and that kind of inspired the bit in Shaun of the Dead where he walks across the street to the store.

Since the sixth book wasn’t done when you guys started shooting the film, did the film influence how you approached the last book?

O’Malley: Oh, it totally did. I was making the last book while we were making the film, and the game, so it was definitely weird. It was kind of like this strange meta experience, and I feel like the book is kind of like a book of the making of the film of the book. It’s very unusual.

Wright: It’s like Inception. If you flip through the pages of the sixth book you can see into another completely different reality.

It’s interesting that you mention Inception because now that I’ve seen both, I was having a conversation with someone last night about how those two films might be the best two films of the year, and it’s a weird conversation to have since they are completely different films.

Wright: Well it’s nice to even be in that conversation…but you have to pick one!

Which did you like better?

Wright: Well I saw Inception last night. I thought it was great.

But which did you think was funnier?

O’Malley: Oh, Inception. It was Ellen Page. She was in Juno.