‘Scott Pilgrim Takes Off’ Showrunners on Bringing Ramona’s Story to Fans

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is a fun new look at the world of Scott Pilgrim from Bryan Lee O’Malley and BenDavid Grabinski, letting fans see a reality in which Scott Pilgrim is maybe defeated by Matthew Patel (Satya Bhabha) and Ramona has to figure out what happened.

One of the things that I love the most about the anime series is that we get to spend more time with Ramona Flowers. When I spoke with O’Malley and Grabinski prior to the show’s release (they wanted to make sure our chat was posted after the show was out so fans could experience the series for themselves), we talked about getting to see Ramona really shine. Voiced by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, this time, Ramona is a detective trying to figure out where Scott (Michael Cera) really is.

“I know that was the thing that both of us, that was our number one goal of this,” Grabinski said about giving Ramona her time. “If we were gonna make a show, we wanted to make a show where we got a lot more stuff with Ramona and got to do surprising, emotional, funny, exciting things that people weren’t expecting. That felt to us like the biggest reason to make the show. And then the premise kind of dictated that.”

For O’Malley, it was about discovering what that meant as they were working on the show. “The viewer’s experience will probably mesh with our experience creating it,” O’Malley said. “But in the second episode Ramona kind of has to fade into the background and then in the third episode she kind of becomes the main character. Like, unexpectedly. She doesn’t even want it, but it just kind of happens. And by the end of that episode, you’re totally rooting for her. And then hopefully you’re kind of hooked on what happens next.”

To that, Grabinski added, “To me, the thing that was the most fun by far and the most dramatically exciting was what happens when she has to deal with her exes. But it’s not like some guy’s fighting them. What does that conflict become? What are their interactions like? What do they learn about each other? How does she grow as a person? But doing all that, in funny, exciting ways was the whole appeal.”

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is on Netflix now.

(featured image: Netflix)