Scott Pilgrim vs the World was supposed to be a mega-hit. Director Edgar Wright’s adaptation of the cult graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O’Malley the film starred the up-and-coming (at the time) Michael Cera as the titular character. Set in a hyper-stylized version of Toronto, Scott Pilgrim is the bass guitarist for a band called Sex Bob-Omb who falls in love with an American Amazon delivery girl named Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). But, to his horror, he discovers that in order to be with her, he has to defeat Romona’s evil exes in battle, with the whole thing done in a way that pays tribute to a variety of influences, including anime, 8-bit video games, Hollywood musicals, indie rock and more.
Again, it was supposed to be a hit. It was extensively screened for fanboys, who rallied around the film everyone seemed to love. Still, the execs at Universal underestimated Scott Pilgrim’s competition, the all-star action team-up movie The Expendables, which cleaned this movie’s clock at the box office. No matter, the film still went on to become a cult hit that sold well on Blu-ray. It was enough of a success that Universal did a limited Dolby Cinema re-release of the movie last year. We dig into this beloved fanboy epic on this episode of WTF Happened to this Movie, written by Brad Hamerly, edited by Jeremy Hamley, and produced and narrated by Dave Davis.
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