You & Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Since catching the first trailers a few months back, I was comfortably on the Scott Pilgrim bandwagon. I hadn't read the Graphic Novel series but it contained a cool premise and interesting cast of characters that I was convinced it would be a great, if not at least a good, film. Upon talking with friends about the film, the clear consensus of my predominantly male circle was that none of them wanted to see the film, nor were they interested in the plot. To their defense, the trailers do not do that great of a job of appealing to the masses. Yes, you can tell the film is 'a boy likes girl' story but in my opinion, they don't do a great job on relaying the success of the Graphic Novel.

While none of my male friends showed any interest, I did manage to convince a few of my female friends to see the film and on Monday night, we managed to catch a screening. To my surprise, the theatre was filled on a Monday evening. The weather in Vancouver was fantastic, so my initial thoughts were that most people would spend the cool evening outside rather than indoors; this was a definite positive in my eyes for the film.

Another thing that I noticed in the cinema was the clear collective of "geeky" and "hipster" people in attendance. These are your skinny jeans, preppy dressed people who know their games but also feel like they are the authoritative person to talk to about anything "worth knowing". These people are clearly not the kind of people I current socialize with.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is a fantastic film. It is well-paced, does a fantastic job with its source material and has a lot of laughs and references anyone who grew up in the late 80s, 90s and early 00s would catch. So why did it only garner 10 million on its opening weekend. Yes, it was against The Expendables, a paint-by-numbers Guy's film, and Eat Pray Love, a paint-by-numbers Gal's film, and both are able to bring in viewers because of that. But Scott Pilrim should have the vocal Geek squad that are the reason why Twitter and Facebook are so popular.

For Scott Pilgrim to succeed in the coming weeks, it absolutely needs Geeks and Hipsters to talk about the film to all their friends. Have these two cliques grown up to still be isolated people that only hang out with the same group of people? You get nowhere if a Geek tells his/her other Geek friend how fantastic Scott Pilgrim is since both are already aware of this. What needs to happen is that the Geek needs to tell his Jock Buddy how funny Scott Pilgrim is, how they reference Tony Hawk and Seinfeld; Geek needs to tell his Drama Queen friend that Scott Pilgrim has a lot of romance in it and that she should take her Boyfriend, the 9-to-5er to see it.

If people spread the word of the film, that is how Scott Pilgrim will succeed at the Box-Office. Kick-Ass required a lot of word-of-mouth to push itself to making money. Not a single one of my friends knew its source material but when I sat them down with the comic series, they were interested.

At this rate, it feels that Scott Pilgrim is destined to bomb at the Box-Office but to make its money in DVD/Blu-Ray sales. Considering the quick turnaround for films (roughly 3-4 months from Cinema to DVD), I would expect us to see Pilgrim on DVD in October/November.

Again, Scott Pilgrim was fantastic and it really needs your help. Tell your friends, take your friends; do what you can because there are often films that can't be missed and this is one of those.