Edgar Wright says Scott Pilgrim cast agreed to reunite for animated show 'within hours'

Thirteen years after the release of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, the film's starry cast — Michael Cera, Chris Evans, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Brie Larson, Kieran Culkin et al — remain fond of director Edgar Wright's box office disappointment-turned-beloved cult classic.

How fond? Wright tells EW that when he approached the movie's actors about reprising their respective roles on Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, an animated Netflix series from showrunners Bryan Lee O'Malley and BenDavid Grabinski, they took less than three hours to sign up.

"I basically said, I'm more than happy to ask everybody," recalls the filmmaker, who is an executive producer on the series. "We had this group email with the cast that had been going since 2010. When the time was right, rather than go to everybody's agents, I wrote a big email. I think the subject was something like 'Scott Pilgrim to be continued?' It said, 'So guess what? Bryan and BenDavid have written this new show as a continuation and obviously we would love you to do it.' It was much longer than that, but the nice thing is, I was looking at that email the other day, and I then looked at the replies, and I noticed that everybody had replied within three hours, which is kind of amazing. Most of the emails were like, 'I'm in!' [Laughs] Which was really nice."

Wright reveals that he was first approached about a new version of the Scott Pilgrim saga — originally detailed in O'Malley's graphic novel series — by Jared LeBoff, a producer on the Universal-distributed movie. According to the director, "Jared called me and said, 'Oh, Universal were asking, is there anything we can do with Scott Pilgrim as a property?' That alone, getting asked that question from Universal, was pleasing to me because it's sort of confirmation that it was no longer considered a 'red ink' item [Laughs]. I don't know today whether the original film has made its money back but there's definitely a lot of merchandise and there's a lot of reissues of the DVD and Blu-ray, and etcetera, etcetera, it just keeps on rumbling. So, finally, this call in 2018 was like, what else could we do with this property? And, without even talking to Bryan, I said, 'Well, maybe someone should do an anime series of it.'"

O'Malley proved amenable to the idea and teamed with Grabinski to write a show which would be familiar to fans while also different enough to keep himself interested. As the former explains, "I wrote this stuff almost 20 years ago. I couldn't go back and rewrite it word for word. I kept thinking, I have to tell the story of Scott Pilgrim in a world where the story of Scott Pilgrim has already been told and people know it. I had to kind of splash a new coat of paint on it and f--- around with it."

Wright admits that when he first read O'Malley and Grabinski's treatment for the show he thought, "Oh, this is bold. This is a wild idea! I wanted to see how it would work myself. Then I read the first script of the first episodes, which I so enjoyed."

Encouraged by O'Malley and Grabinski's work, Wright approached the cast and received that unanimous and near-immediate response.

"I remember sitting in Bryan's office when we started to see the emails of people saying that they were interested," says Grabinski. "I literally screamed. That was the first point where we felt like, okay, this could be a cool show."

In addition to helping get the actors onboard, Wright made clear to the cast — whose members also include Aubrey Plaza, Jason Schwartzman, Anna Kendrick, Alison Pill, Brandon Routh, and Mae Whitman — that he was available to deal with any problems which arose. The director says that he "wanted to make sure everyone that I had cast was all good. Any time they would do a session, I would text them before to say, 'Hey, I'm here, if you need me, just let me know.' That cast, it's an embarrassment of riches in the original film and now even more so when all of them have gone on to greater things. Having them all back, it's like a family reunion in a way. It felt like a very warm feeling to hear those actors playing those parts again. Because, obviously, nobody ages in animation, and so those characters can remain beautifully preserved in that magical Toronto time zone!"

Wright is excited for Scott Pilgrim diehards to watch a show which he insists will seem both similar and very different from his own movie.

"I said to Bryan, make sure the fans don't think they're going to see a straight adaptation," the director reveals. "So he's sort of been teasing that there's something different. I think even just from the trailers you get the sense that this is something more than the books. I'm really happy the people who have seen it so far have embraced it."

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off premieres on Netflix Nov. 17. Watch the show's trailer below.

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