Speaking to MTV Splash Page, director Edgar Wright let slip a lot of interesting information on how his Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World differs from cartoonist Bryan Lee O'Malley's comic book series. Wright says that Scott Pilgrim vs. the World incorporates elements from the first three volumes of O'Malley's comic and is so faithful to O'Malley's vision that it includes material that O'Malley considered using but never put into his comics.
"It stays pretty true to volumes one and two. And three," explained Wright. "After three volumes, it starts to take its own path, but very much within the spirit of the book - and approved by Bryan as well. ... There are some things that are in the film that are actually from Bryan's original ideas before he wrote the books. [So] there are some things in there that refer to older ideas which he didn't end up doing."
"It's ironic, because there will be a couple of scenes when people will say, 'That's not in the book,' but actually, if you look at these notes from 2005..." he said. "I feel like we tried to respect the books as much as we can in a Hollywood film, but also infuse his ideas that didn't necessarily fit into the volumes."
The project poses the first major creative challenge of Wright's career as it forces him to adapt material that was designed for another medium, unlike Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead which were created specifically for the screen. It sounds like he has the right approach though and is thankfully not going to crank out another limp "strict adaptation" like either Zack Snyder's Watchmen or Robert Rodriguez's Sin City. That way lies madness.
