Scott Pilgrim Movie to Differ From Books

Since last summer, there have been questions flying around Edgar Wright’s film adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim graphic novel series. A script was written at a time when only three of the current five books had been written, and the sixth and final book hasn’t even been finished yet. O’Malley had said that the ending to the film would be different from the books, and that he was pleased with the script. MTV talked to Wright the other day, and he had this to say about the film adaptation:

“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.”

Given the changes have O’Malley’s consent and Wright has yet do write anything I didn’t like, I feel strangely good about an adaptation with a completely different path from the book. The film is set for release August 13.