‘I don’t want to revisit myself at 25’: The story behind Netflix’s bold Scott Pilgrim anime
By now most people know the secret behind Scott Pilgrim Takes Off: Scott Pilgrim — well, he takes off. He’s gone, for most of the narrative, leaving the players as we know them to pick up the pieces and figure out what happened to him. What happens to them in his absence is usually a total flip of what we’ve come to expect: Think Gideon introducing Lucas to the slowburn anime he’s been watching for a while (or maybe just a few days).
Bryan Lee O’Malley, who wrote the original comic and co-created the Netflix anime reboot with BenDavid Grabinski, knows that sort of remake is something audiences have come to expect. “I mean, it’s in the air, right? We’re all seeing remakes and reboots of everything,” O’Malley says.
When Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was in development he says he and the team looked at everything new in this vein they could, from The Matrix ResurrectionstoSpider-Man: No Way Home. But just as frequently he turned elsewhere for inspiration — Dragonball Z, Cowboy Bebop, Keep Your Hands off Eizouken!, or even Elden Ring. But none of these were quite the main catalyst, even something like Evangelion, which he calls “a good comparison, but not necessarily an influence.”
The real reason O’Malley wanted to make this story was simply: It was the only way he could see revisiting the world of Scott Pilgrim.
[Ed. note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.]
Polygon: Starting off: I’m curious to hear a little bit about how you did justice by Matthew Patel, the lowest ranking evil ex.
Bryan Lee O’Malley: Our first spark of idea was to kind of take Scott Pilgrim out of the picture after the first episode. And that naturally led to the process of: Then what happens to Matthew? What does Matthew get? And
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