Comic-Con: Scott Pilgrim, The Video Game!

This had to happen. I hoped that word would 'slip out' during the "Spotlight on Bryan Lee O'Malley" panel today at Comic Con. That didn't happen, as the panel focused more on O'Malley's art and history (entirely appropriate, really) but Attack of the Show broke the news, so it's out in the wild. Hooray! UbiSoft is making a Scott Pilgrim video game to coincide with the release of Edgar Wright's film. It's a downloadable side-scrolling old-school beat-em-up. Sounds like a good way to get some of the scenes that didn't make it into the film onto screens anyway. This is a 'soft' announcement; expect more details from UbiSoft next week.

Meanwhile, what about the movie? O'Malley fielded a few questions about the film, but unfortunately didn't reveal much new info at all. He confirmed that Knives Chau's father is not in the film, that Lisa Miller isn't in the script and that, in general, this tells the basic story of Scott Pilgrim, his romance with Ramona Flowers and his battle against her evil exes. O'Malley said that the primary script draft was written while he was writing volume four, and that the film is most like the first four volumes, but with elements of the fifth and sixth, culminating in the battle with the mysterious Gideon (Jason Schwartzman). That battle took about three weeks to film. (Which we already knew, more or less, thanks to Wright's video blogs.)

When do we got the last volume of the graphic novel series? Sometime between May and August next year — basically 'summer'. O'Malley said that he spends about six months writing the whole book (currently, he's using Final Draft screenwriting software) and then another six months drawing. He's almost done writing book six now, so that gives a rough timetable.

Check out the game announcement on Attack of the Show below; it's at about 1:40.