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Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is filled with new ideas, say showrunners

The upcoming Netflix animated series is the result of "30 seconds in the microwave for my brain" says creator Bryan Lee O'Malley

News by Graeme McMillan, Editor

Published on Mon Nov 13 2023

Netflix’s new animated series Scott Pilgrim Takes Off sees cartoonist Bryan Lee O’Malley return to the character (and the story) that he created almost 20 years ago… but it’s far from a rehash of the former glories. The show is a bold reinvention of the beloved graphic novel series (and movie!), with O’Malley making big swings in reapproaching the material. How did this happen? It’s all thanks to series co-writer and O’Malley’s fellow showrunner, BenDavid Grabinski.

“Bryan still loves Scott Pilgrim, but also when you're doing the same story for 20 years, you want to feel like, “How can I have a new way to tell it?” And I blurted out a bunch of ideas that became the concept for the show, and Bryan really responded to them,” Grabinski explained during a conversation with Popverse last month. “I think my job was to always have a fresh perspective on something that in his head had sort of become concrete.”

O’Malley agreed, adding, “For me, [the idea of what Scott Pilgrim was] had congealed, but BenDavid was 30 seconds in the microwave for my brain. Suddenly things started moving again in a way that I hadn't anticipated.”

Grabinski said that he felt as if his job was to suggest alternative ideas, and “that would lead to Bryan suddenly having new ideas, where I was just always trying to push it to do something that felt like it was the same voice as everything he's done before. But I wanted to make something that was endlessly surprising and felt like the most exciting new version of the story that we could do.”

Fans can see for themselves how surprising and exciting the newest incarnation of the story is when Scott Pilgrim Takes Off debuts on Netflix November 17. Watch for more from Popverse’s conversation with Grabinski and O’Malley in the next few days.

Netflix's Scott Pilgrim Takes Off isn't for kids or preteens, according to the FCC

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Graeme McMillan: Popverse Editor Graeme McMillan (he/him) has been writing about comics, culture, and comics culture on the internet for close to two decades at this point, which is terrifying to admit. He completely understands if you have problems understanding his accent.