Scott Pilgrim Panel from Comic-Con 2010

Here is most of the Scott Pilgrim panel for you, from Comic-Con 2010! Fun panel, great moments. Pilgrim had an amazing showing at Comic-Con and won over the entire geek market & their friends. It may have not reached beyond that yet (small drop off next weekend?! word of mouth?! possible?!), resulting in all of us being in a state of fret, so I thought I'd post this so we can all feel a little bit better! Pilgrim may not be as mainstream as we hoped, but I have no doubt it'll go down in history as a beloved cult film, if nothing else.

Opening - Brandon Routh on Superman vs Todd Ingram
:37 - Is Michael Cera afraid of being type cast?
1:08 - Did Ellen & Alison make out in the movie? Will they now?! Answered by Alison Pill
1:40 - What brought Edgar to this project, based on a graphic novel
2:36 - What was Michael's favorite part of being in Scott Pilgrim
3:25 - Michael on the Arrested Development movie
3:58 - Did the members of the cast like the source material? Answered by Jason Schwartzman & Aubrey Plaza
5:10 - What's it like pretending to be Canadian?
6:25 - Was Edgar inspired by fighting games for the fight scenes?
7:23 - What research did Michael do to prepare for this role?
8:40 - Jason says something sweet about Edgar :)
9:00 - Did the cast feel pressure being a part of the project? Answered by Mae Whitman & Satya Bhabha
9:40 - How did Ellen find getting into character for/playing Knives?

:20 - How did they not crack up on set and what is the funniest scene for each of them to film? Answered by everyone.
5:28 - The experience of shooting in Toronto and using Toronto as Toronto
6:48 - Hilarious moment of girl calling out Michael Cera for not getting in shape during Scott Pilgrim

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Edgar Wright Burrows Deep Into Scott Pilgrim [Seewhatididthere?]

A bunch of journalists recently had a lovely chat with Edgar Wright, the director of Scott Pilgrim, (and also director of one of my top 5 TV shows of all time, Spaced and top 10 movies of all time, Shaun of the Dead, lalala, I love him), opening today, in which he touched on his Comic-Con experience, why there was never a doubt that all seven exes had to be in Scott Pilgrim, and why the American Spaced pilot just didn't work. While we were unable to attend the roundtables at the last minute, the amazing Todd Gilchrist of Cinematical fame was nice enough to share his audio so we could transcribe some of the magic that transpired.

On Comic-Con,

It was my fifth Comic-Con and it was probably the most bananas. We showed the film three times over the weekend and it was very sweet, it became sort of like a theatrical residency. And the cast -- some of whom like Michael Cera, had not seen it yet, watched for the first time on Thursday night with the Comic-Con fans -- they all came back every night to watch it and, you know, I came back, so I watched it twice over the weekend.

And the audience reaction surpassed even the love Wright & the cast felt for the film. Though Wright experienced what a Comic-Con screening could do when he brought Shaun of the Dead in 2004, which resulted in "...the best screenings we ever had of Shaun...", the insanity of Scott Pilgrim was a whole other ballgame.

It was great on the first night, then kind of got bigger on the subsequent nights…It wasn't the first time I'd seen it with an audience, ‘cause we went through the test screening process, so I've watched it about five times with an audience, you know, like completely cold, so I knew where all the big laughs were already, but then people just responded very warmly throughout, and it was just very gratifying. [P]eople clapped frequently, and I think it says everything about the film that on the first night, they clapped at Scott and Ramona kissing, but they also clapped when Scott head-butted a man to death. [Laughter] That probably says everything about the film: kissing gets applause and so does head-butting..

One of the defining elements of the film is the influence it draws from video games, which is something that also made the comics stand out. On that influence,

Well, it's in the comics, we took it a little bit further.

Before the comic book movies started to really score in the late 90s, there was a thing in the 80s, where the best comic book movies were not based on comics. Like Robocop is an amazing comic book film which isn't a comic and yet it was leagues ahead of comic book adaptations. It always amused me -- not to mention any names -- but the general consensus was that a lot of video game adaptations as films were not very good or haven't been. Not many people can honestly argue that there have been that many great video game films yet. [... W]hen people make like, Tomb Raider or Prince of Persia or Resident Evil, they leave out the most famous part of video games, which is the graphics and the most fun aspects of it and stuff. I guess the only film that did that for a little bit was Doom -- it at least had that point of view sequence. But I thought, well this is the perfect kind of license to take the parts of video games, the parts of video game adaptations that they always kind of leave on the floor, and have a ball with it.

Bryan Lee O Malley had this great quote about Scott Pilgrim being the hero of the movie inside his own head and I think the film is exactly that, it's like Scott Pilgrim's daydream [... H]e's like a fantacist and you're watching his version of events. It kind of explains the level of reality. You're seeing the film through Scott Pilgrim's eyes and it's kind of governed by the pop culture that he consumes.

On whether he plays video games himself and much much more after the jump!

I did grow up on [...] the British home computer, The ZX Spectrum [sic] was what ruled my sort of pre-teens. And then I also went through a Sega phase and a Playstation phase, but [...] I haven't owned a console in ten years. When I made the TV show, Spaced, they had a Playstation on the set and it was my Playstation and I left it on set at the end of the second series and I never had a console in my house since because it was becoming a problem -- like I had a heroin addiction and I had to like, get off. So [...] I would call myself a "lapsed gamer."

The video game references in the film are all more nostalgic than anything. [...] People always talk about video games in a contemporary sense, and yet [...] most of the iconography and sort of tropes that are in the film are all like, from the 80s.

Much like Kick Ass, as one reporter pointed out, Scott Pilgrim, the film, was being worked on as the comic was still being written - in this case, all the books after the first installment, as Edgar got involved so early on that the second book, although written, didn't even have art yet. When he and co-writer Michael Bacall met with Bryan in Toronto in 2005, they "...[picked] his brains and [Bryan] sort of forced himself to outline the rest of the books." Some of the film actually came from that original outline, even if it changed once Bryan actually wrote the rest of the books. Wright goes into more depth on the matter,

I was skeptical about it at first but as it turned out, it actually worked out really well.

[...] By the time we started [actively] making the film, the fifth book had been published and the sixth book had been half written and essentially, even though the two things diverge, and very much with Bryan's blessing, [...] we sort of arrived at the same ending from different directions and it was really interesting in that respect. It worked out, it became a very organic process, that Bryan was involved all the way through and even in some cases he took the lines from the script and put them into the books. [...]

With this we decided pretty early on that it was okay to diverge because structurally, we had to make it more like a 70s Shaw Brothers film, like you know with a sort of succession of tournaments and jewels or even like, video games. Although ironically, a lot of the fighting games of the 80s are based on like, 70s kung fu films, [...] so all the different things blend together, but it's interesting. Sometimes I think some fans say "Well, why didn't you make six films?" And A. I think I would have been laughed out of the studio and B. I'm glad that everything is climaxed in 2010, I think it was the right -- I'd much rather the film be coming out on the heels of the book and the game than for us to be talking about Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour in 2022. 

On whether there was ever a point where he thought he should cut the exes down,

This is gonna sound really silly, but me and Michael Bacall decided that even numbers didn't sound cool. And you couldn't just do five, cause that would be too similar to Five Deadly Venoms and two of them are twins, so it has to be seven anyway, seven sounds cool. Six does not sound cool, four does not sound cool, five's been done, it's gotta be seven, that was it.

I think in terms of a film adaptation, with the fans, it would have been like Three Days of the Condor, people would have been like "Auugh, gaaghhh they took two of the exes out." So I felt like we had to do it and I think in that sense the video game metaphor is probably even stronger in the film because of that ‘cause the idea is Scott Pilgrim is fighting through different levels and it hopefully has a labors of Hercules kind of feel to it [...] Scott Pilgrim, half of the way through sort of gives up, because what was fun in the first fight and maybe part of the second fight is not fun anymore for him, so he goes through a passage where he doesn't wanna fight, then the next fight he has he is consumed with jealous rage and literally conjures up a green-eyed monster and it's almost about the -- sort of like the first and the last fight are about him doing it for the right reasons, and finally it's about him fighting for himself rather than a relationship.

On whether he is into comics at all and if there is anything else he would like to see adapted into film, even if he didn't adapt it himself,

I used to read all the Marvel comics when I was a kid and in my teens. I was definitely more of a Marvel kid, well I also used to read 2000 AD, the British comic a lot, [but] as I've been working over the past 15 years, my comic book reading has sort of lapsed a bit, beyond some big graphic novels. [...] Bryan's book six years ago, it was literally pressed into my hands two weeks after it was published and I hadn't really read anything like that and it really inspired me because it wasn't like a generic superhero film, and it wasn't the same old spin on the X-Men, it was something a little bit different. And that's what kind of made it irresistible to me, really, is that it was a mix of different genres and there have been comic book adaptations of comedy books, like American Splendor or Ghost World, but this was in a completely different kind of league, somewhere between that and The Matrix, something I just thought was really kind of fascinating and an irresistible challenge really.

On whether he always knew he wanted Michael Cera to portray Scott Pilgrim,

Never had anybody else in mind. Me and Michael Bacall have been working on it since 2005 and I remember writing the first draft in 2005 and watching a lot of Arrested Development and saying aloud "Aw, it's a shame that George Michael kid isn't older, he'd be perfect." We essentially got our wish, like five years later.

But really to me it's funny. When there are some people who talk about the casting, they maybe envision somebody who is more of a ripped action star or sort of matinee-idol handsome or something, and I never saw it like that when I read the books. To me on the page, Scott Pilgrim looks sort of like a gangly teen and he is an unlikely fighter because essentially it's this complete wish-fulfillment fantasy of somebody who has played a lot of video games actually [being] like a kick-ass fighter in real life. So I thought there wasn't really any other actor, as far as I was concerned, who could bring off the charm -- like the goofiness, the huge massive insecurities, that he basically goes to pieces for the whole mid-section of the film -- and somebody that would be fun to watch in these fight scenes. To have somebody that was more physically confident or outwardly confident is not as much fun to watch in the middle of these battles and yet, for my money, Michael Cera and Jason Schwartzman having a sword fight is very entertaining to watch. 

On people online calling it a Hipster movie

It's funny, cause I find with this film, and this is a theme we've tackled in Spaced and in Shaun of the Dead and even in Hot Fuzz, it's kind of been a theme in everything I've done [...] is no matter how cool you think you are, there is always somebody younger, cooler or thinner. [... T]here is definitely this element with Sex Bob-Omb, in that at the start of the film, Sex Bob-Omb are legends in their own living room, and then when they go into the outer world, everybody is better than them, everybody is cooler than them. Stephen Stills is a complete nervous wreck because every other band is cooler, and for Scott Pilgrim, in terms of the other exes, everybody represents something to him which is intimidating: [Lucas Lee] is famous, Todd Ingram is a better bass player, Roxy Richter is sexually intimidating to him, Gideon Graves is a much much cooler -- he is the hipster, the villain of the piece is the hipster and if you look on the score album, during the fight sequence where Scott Pilgrim mows down all of Gideon's henchmen, the name of the track is "Death To All Hipsters" and if you do notice, they all have jaunty sort of hats on. [...]

I don't know anyone who describes themselves as a hipster, it's always used as a derogatory term and Bryan Lee O Malley joked once, he said "The only hipster I know is Edgar Wright" and I said "I wish I was skinny enough to be a hipster." ‘cause I feel exactly the same way, when I go to LA, I just see people in skinny jeans and think "Oh shit!" So I wouldn't call myself a hipster, I think I need to lose 50 pounds before I can be called a hipster.

On Simon Pegg saying he was publicly relieved that Fox' Spaced reboot didn't fly and if there was any chance of it still happening.

I think Simon would publicly relieve himself on the pilot. [Laughter]

I've publicly registered my discontent about the American Spaced a number of times and one thing I now kind of find is even though I've seen it and I watched it with Simon and Jessica and it was strange. It was very strange to watch something made on an obviously bigger budget be so kind of bland. However, I’ve got to say I have absolutely nothing against any of the actors in that pilot, because they were just doing their job and [there were] some kinda funny comedy actors in that so I feel I’ve got to be careful what I say, because it's unfair to them to them that the pilot didn't get picked up, so some people didn't get work and stuff. But I'd be lying if I said I was not happy that it's gone. What was very clear that was really interesting watching the American version of Spaced is that the actors playing the Tim and Daisy clones in the American one did not write the show. And what you can't fabricate, you can't put in a bottle, you can't put personality in a bottle and if anything, it kind of really came home to me, it came home to all of us, how personal that show was and how that can't be Xeroxed really. I mean, The Office is different because it's a workplace comedy and the actors in the other show have made their own mark with it. But this was something where it was Simon and Jessica; it was their lives, it was their personalities and you can't just cut and paste those kind of souls really. It just [had] no heart to it whatsoever.

And for fun, Metric performing Black Sheep at the first Scott Pilgrim screening of Comic-Con 2010!

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The Only Thing This Limited Edition Scott Pilgrim Poster Is Missing....

...is Comeau. I mean, come on, he "knows everyone", he should be on every poster. :).

[Collider]

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Catch Up On Scott Pilgrim THIS WEEK! Now on iPad/iPhone!

Want to read all of Scott Pilgrim before the movie comes out this Friday, but can't get to the local comic book store/don't have a local comic book store/local comic book store is all sold out?

Never fear! Oni press and comiXology have come to the rescue by releasing all six Scott Pilgrim books on the iPad & the iPhone. I just downloaded the free app (search for Scott Pilgrim) and it's GORGEOUS. The first two chapters of volume one are available free and beyond that, the volumes are $6.99 for one through five and $11.99 for six.

I'm very much a believer in physically owning the comics you read, but the iPad REALLY helps when you are in a bind, like missing an issue that was never reprinted, or that you lent out before you got the chance to read it, or, as in this case, you only have a short time to read A LOT of material that you can't necessarily get your hands on tangibly at this point.

Comics look REALLY pretty on the iPad. Felicia Day and I totally had a chat about it at Comic-Con. That is all.

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Geeky Ringtones For You?

Because I said so

Tonight, @Brotodeau created an Inception ringtone and posted it on Twitter for all to download. This resulted in me downloading it. It was awesome. Afterwards, I got inspired and decided to experiment with my new droid and its ringtone capabilities. I don't know what the rules are for iphones and what not, but these will CERTAINLY work for a Droid or a Blackberry. Here they my geektastic experiments.

Battlestar - Violence & Variations (Lee/Kara) - Download

Battlestar - Roslin & Adama - Download

Lost - Life & Death - Download

True Blood - Hairclip (Bill/Sookie) - Download

Scott Pilgrim - 8 Bit Universal Theme (For @genjadeshade, whose idea it was!) - Download

Note for Droid owners - I sent the files to myself using Bluetooth, then set them to ringtones. Super easy that way. Actually, if there is any other way to get ringtones on the Droid from your computer...I don't know what they are.

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Stan's back, kicking off Comic Con '10!

Hey all, Chantaal (@strongpieces & Girls Read Comics Too) here helping out as an extra correspondent/fangirl for Comic Con 2010! I'll be covering all kinds of various things over the next four days, but the biggest of which had to be today's press conference with Stan Lee, unveiling new characters and creative teams for his new comics with Boom! Studios.


First, I just have to say one thing: Stan is absolutely amazing in person. He's a charmer, and were I not completely in love with him before today, I would have fallen in love all over again. Alas, I didn't get to take a picture with him before people were moving him away, but I got to stand less than five feet from him and bask in his presence.


Stan and Boom! Studios will be releasing three new series at the end of this year:

Soldier Zero, written by Paul Cornell with art by Javier Pina, debuts in October. It involves the story of a wheelchair-bound man who suddenly finds himself bonded with an alien weapon of war. Most interesting was Paul Cornell describing how much respect went into research for this, specifically when it came to writing about the paraplegic.

The Traveler, written Mark Waid with art by Chad Hardin, debuts in November. It involves a time traveling super hero who tries to save the past from a band of evil assassins from the future.

Starborn, written Chris Roberson with art by Khary Randolph, debuts in December. It involves a man finding himself the heir to an intergalactic empire, which leads to all sorts of delicious socio-political intrigue in space. Stan himself says it "makes Star Wars look like a quickie!"

Knowing Stan and the talent Boom! has assembled, these are bound to be exciting new additions to the world of comics.

Some more highlights from preview night:

Between this and the Scott Pilgrim experience going on all four days across the street from the con, looks like SP will be taking the cake for best exposure.

Light cycle! Even more orgasmic in person. (And I'll be covering Tron tomorrow, so look out for that!)

MJOLNIR!!

(Concept art for the Thor video game!)

And last but not least, Bryan Lee O'Malley standing not five feet from us as we bought Scott Pilgrim Vol. 6. And a poster. And sweet wristbands.

I'll be constantly updating my twitter with Comic Con news, odds and ends over the next few days, so feel free to follow and say hello!

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SCOTT PILGRIM EPICNESS AHHHHHHHHH [Comic-Con 2010]

How excited are you guys for the Scott Pilgrim Experience at Comic-Con?!!??!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH LOOK AT WHAT IT IS I WANT IT ALL FOREVER

EXPERIENCE THE EPIC WORLD OF SCOTT PILGRIM AT
“SCOTT PILGRIM VS. COMIC-CON”

Scott Pilgrim Kicks Comic-Con’s Heart in the Ass! 

Meet the cast and creators: The cast of Universal’s action-comedy will be out and
about throughout the convention. Check out twitter.com/SPvsCC for a detailed
schedule so you can meet the actors playing your favorite evil ex, jerky jerk or
high-school crush, as well as the creator of Scott Pilgrim, Bryan Lee O’Malley, and
director Edgar Wright! 

Hear epic live music: Two of the film’s stellar music contributors, Dan the
Automator and Kid Koala, will spin, and Gorgeous Got a Gun, the winner of
Sonicbids’ “Indie Rock vs. the World: Battle of the Bands” will rock your face off. 

Create your own T-shirt: Choose from awesome Comic-Con exclusive
designs to make a limited edition T-shirt that will make your friends jealous. 

Moving Flipbooks: Grab your friends, stage a fight, and take home a flipbook that
stars all of you! 

Upload a video postcard: Instantly upload and email a personal video
message to your friends about how awesome you are for being at Comic-Con. 

Play the new Ubisoft Game: Be one of the very first to test out Ubisoft’s “Scott
Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game” on one of several demo stations. 

Check out the complete soundtrack: Hear the amazing soundtrack more than two
weeks before the August 10 street date. 

Get gift bags: While supplies last, your Comic-Con badge will score you a not-so-
evil Scott Pilgrim gift bag. 

Download the iPhone and iPad App “Pilgrim’s Punch-Out”: Get the action-
packed game, our schedule Comic-Con events, integrated twitter feed and live
updates at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pilgrims-punch-out/id380736800?mt=8. 

WHERE:
Hilton Gaslamp Courtyard
San Diego, CA
Follow us on twitter @SPvsCC 

WHEN:
Thursday, July 22 (12 PM to 4:00 PM)
Friday, July 23 (10:00 AM to 4:00)
Saturday, July 24 (10:00 AM to 4:00)

Genre-smashing filmmaker Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) tells the amazing
story of one romantic slacker’s quest to power up with love in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.
In theaters nationwide on August 13, 2010. www.scottpilgrimthemovie.com

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Spaced Pilgrims!

Thank you Edgar Wright for tweeting this and thanks Dark Bunny Tees for creating it. Now we just need Marsha, Twist and Colin and we're set! (RIP Colin)

PS if you don't know what's going on here, I feel simultaneously really bad for you, but also really excited for you that you have yet to experience the genius that is Spaced, of which I have seen every episode at least three times. My god was I in love with Tim Bisley. Heart heart love love squee faint!

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IN WHICH SCOTT PILGRIM BLASTS YOUR FACE OFF

AHHHHHHH IT'S A SCOTT PILGRIM TRAILER! FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY!!

I know this has been posted everywhere already, but you bet your ass I'm posting it here because HELLO HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN WAITING FOR THIS HELLOOOOOOOOOO.

I've read all 5 existing books and plan on re-reading ZEM ALL because they're amazing and the trailer looks just like the comic but with color and Edgar Wright is so perfect ZOMG and I can't wait for the next trailer where we see solid shots of Aubrey Plaza and more Ash Fox & Superman and Comeau (pretty please) and Knives Chau and Wallace and where's Kim and OMG the possibilities. RAHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I've never thought Michael Cera was very good casting, but this trailer is kind of convincing me otherwise and Mary Elizabeth Winstead looks just like Ramona and omg I hope they go to sub-space I DON'T THINK YOU UNDERSTAND. Read the books, I hate you. TRAILER - GO!

[UGO]

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