I loved “Scott Pilgrim.” I really did. I also find myself wondering if the director was a fan of “Speed Racer” since much of the storytelling and editing was evocative of that film. I predicted after seeing “Speed Racer” that you were going to see a lot of its techniques showing up in future movies, and this might be the first of them.
It’s hard to believe that a film with as much energy, great acting and storytelling is struggling at the box office, but that’s where we are with “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.” SP received major push at the San Diego Con, making one wonder just how much post-con lift to films a convention presence really translates into. Thus far its major accomplishment is to make “Kick-Úš,” generally considered a disappointment, look like a triumph.
Naturally this will be scrutinized as an indicator of how “comic book” movies do when they don’t feature non-mainstream superheroes. Which is, of course, ridiculous. “Road to Perdition” and “Men in Black” were both “comic book movies.” Audiences just didn’t think of them as such.
Ariel told me something kind of chilling. “Scott Pilgrim’s” target audience is, basically, her peer group, and she said she tried to get up a group to go see it. But she was rebuffed, told by her friends that they didn’t have the money to go to the movies but hey, no problem, they had access to sites on line where they could just watch it for free.
If this is really a prevalent attitude toward movies aimed at that age group, it means that films like “The Expendables” and “Toy Story 3” which skew older (yes, the latter skews older because parents are paying to bring their kids) can still make a mark at the box office but teen movies may be opening with two strikes against them.
In the meantime, let’s hope that “Scott Pilgrim” benefits from the terrific word of mouth it so richly deserves.
PAD
Originally published August 27, 1993, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1032
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