So it's no secret that Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is going to be a big movie, at least if the internet buzz is any indication. The team behind the film has descended on Comic-Con in a big way, with a huge poster on one of the hotels nearby, and by bringing seemingly everyone who made the film except for craft services to this panel. The program says 14 people are going to be on it, although hopefully I'm misreading that.
6:08: Little clip/interview bit that runs down the plot of the film. If you've seen the trailers, you'll know what's up. Some good lines: "I'm in lesbians with you", "Don't talk grammar to me!" And on comes Edgar Wright (big applause for Shaun of the Dead), who looks like he might be moderating his own panel. A little nervous about following Sylvester Stallone, but he confirms that there are 14 people on the panel. I'm not sure how all of them are going to have any speaking time.
Nice little featurette to introduce Bryan Lee O'Malley, the creator of Scott Pilgrim; they put a lot of effort into the bumpers for this! Bryan says it's "weird" to be here; Wright's only allowing everyone to say one word in response to the question. Wright makes a joke about releasing the film in 2D; guess he wasn't around for the Joss Whedon panel, when that joke was made first. Poor guy. :(
6:16: Bringing on people more rapidly now: Alison Pill and someone else. I'm not even going to try and keep up with all of these names at this point, except to re-emphasize my bold stance on Kieran Culkin's creepiness. He has an amazing display of bracelets on his wrist; they make me think of a serial killer's trophies or something. Jason Schwartzman in the house, at least; a bit surprised he showed up. I guess Brandon Routh has been here before when he was doing Superman; where's he been?
6:20: Goddamn, Mary Elizabeth Winstead is shockingly tall. Oh, and a BIG SURPRISE when Simon Pegg and Nick Frost appear, only to be told that they actually aren't in the film, and they walk off. :( Would've been fun to see them do some of this stuff. Chris Evans couldn't be here because he's shooting Captain America right now; interesting that the director will be here on Sunday, then. And...it's Michael Cera, dressed up in a store-bought Captain America suit. That's one stuffed panel.
6:26 Nice, brief clip of Scott Pilgrim showing the dude himself cutting up a bunch of goons and making them fall into piles of coins. Looks genuinely cool, as the first question-asker can attest to: cute little kid with a memorized question about the inspirations for the franchise. "I think I inspired myself, because I'm a super genius!" Ok! That settles that. "Anyone with a two or three-part question will be shot on sight."
6:27: "My question is for Superman." How did you go from playing a superhero to a supervillain? "Basically, you just do everything the opposite of Superman." Routh seems pretty personable. Too bad she tries for a followup question. "In 30 seconds, that woman will be dead."
6:28: Is Cera afraid of being typecasted? "So much, yeah". That outfit makes him look even more childlike than normal. "Do Ellen and Allison make out?" Answer: "Like, inj the film, or now?" Edgar, was it weird doing this after all the British comedies you've worked on? He says it reminded him a little bit of Spaced when he read the comics, so it wasn't hard to come on board.
6:31: Any info on an Arrested Development movie? Answer: "I want it to get made, and I think it's going to." Interesting, because I've heard his scheduling and salary stuff has been a sticking block there.
6:32: Any comic fans in the cast? Jason says that it was a combination of the source material and working with Edgar and Michael. "Was it hard pretending to be Canadian?" Three of the cast members are Canadian, leading Brandon to say "It was hard working with all these Canadians" in a pretty good deadpan. Andddd it's Flynn's Arcade guy again. "How much did video games influence the fight scenes?" Apparently the film's different fights are meant to represent a different level of a video game as they progressed. So there'll be some Tekken sound effects and elements from Sonic and Mario games.
6:36: Cera says there was two months of fight training and rehearsing before the movie started shooting...with Team Jackie Chan. Michael earned the title of "Mikey The Push-Up King".
6:40: I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad that this film is going to inspire a lot of dyed hair in the female population. I guess it's cool? I'm a little surprised that there isn't more of that at the convention. Wright asks Culkin what it was like kissing a man. "You mean you and me, or on the set?" Turns out they actually did make out to prepare Culkin for the role: "Do you think Stallone kissed any of the Expendables? I took one for the team." I'm getting more enthusiastic for this movie now; I'm just concerned that maybe it'll be really witty and clever and try so hard to be cool that it might lose its heart. But I guess we'll all have to see! Everyone's talking about scenes in which they cracked up during filming, but they can't give out any spoilers, so it's basically them just saying "Hey, yeah, there was a funny time when I laughed a lot."
6:43: Chairman Meow t-shirt asks: "What was it like shooting in Toronto and actually using it as Toronto instead of New York or Los Angeles?" Wright says it almost came about that they were going to shoot in New York and have that double for Toronto for tax reasons, which would've been an ironic twist. Question for Michael: "How did you maintain your trademark figure despite all of your training?" Gets some good laughs from the crowd. "Is that an insult?" asks Michael.
6:47: They're screening the movie now! We all have buttons that will get us in; they gave them out before the Q&A. So we're off to see the movie! Nice surprise!
