Exclusive Interview: 'Scott Pilgrim vs. the World' director Edgar Wright and actor Brandon Routh

Edgar Wright, director of "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz," recently stopped by in San Francisco to promote "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World," and the man sat down with me to chat about the film.

Enjoy the uncut interview below. Wright chats about video games, adapting the graphic novels and having a lot of freedom in terms of creating his vision. He was joined by actor Brandon Routh.

"Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" follows a dude names Scott, who falls in love with a chick but realizes he must first defeat her seven evil exes. It sounds cool, and it really is. You can read my review here...

• The Screening Log: This film has a lot of video game influences. What research did you do, and are you into video games?

Edgar Wright: Reading the books made me nostalgic, because a lot of the game references are from the '80s and early '90s, and I did a TV show called "Space" about 1- years ago, but that was kind of the last time I was a serious gamer. If anything, doing that show was kind of the end of an era for me because I had to get the console out of the house if I was ever going to write a screenplay. So I think "Shaun of the Dead" wouldn't have happened if there had been a Playstation in the house.

One of the things with the film is we didn't want the video game references to be alienating, so I think if anything, they're very universal, no pun intended. Also, they're kind of very nostalgic really.

Brandon Routh: I played a lot of games growing up. I still play now… more computer than console actually, but my console games are usually the various "Halos" and "Rockband" and "Gears of War." But I grew up playing a lot of role-playing games, "Dragon Warrior," "Shining Forces." I definitely had a "World of Warcraft" addiction for a while.

Edgar Wright: A lot of people talk about "World of Warcraft" like a problem [laughs].

Brandon Routh: It's hard to moderate.

• The Screening Log: How do you find a balance in the story between the action and the love interest, and having the tone kind of steady between the two stories?

Edgar Wright: That was definitely the challenge of adapting it, and you know, what attracted me to the project was also the challenge of making a live-action film and juggling action-comedy-romance and music. The trickiest thing about it is that a lot of them are all happening in the same scenes. What we tried to do, and sometimes in a very explicit way and sometimes in a metaphorical way, is let the fights show how Scott Pilgrim is feeling about his situation. In the first fight he's in the middle of his honeymoon period, and he's just made out with his girl the night befire, so he feels incredibly strong, and he defeats Matthew Patel with ease. But then as it goes on, his insecurities kind of start to crop out, and he actually gets his ass kicked for the next three fights. By the time he gets to the fourth fight, he's kind of over it and he's not even sure whether he wants to play anymore. So I like this idea that it's not about him fighting the exes to get the girl, it's fighting to keep the relationship going.

• The Screening Log: In a time when studios are careful about what movies they make, what was it like for you to have the freedom to bring your vision to this project?

Edgar Wright: I think I was very very lucky. I'm not sure the same film would get greenlit today, I don't know. I actually felt very fortunate because the film got greenlit in December 2008, just before the major economy collapse. I remember flying to Toronto from London and thinking I'm so fortunate I have a job for the rest of the year. I'm going to be busy on this film. I got to hand it to Universal, they've been incredibly supportive. You know, it's a pretty crazy film, but you get a lot of people complaining about how generic films are the days.

• The Screening Log: What was the process like for you to adapt "Scott Pilgrim" with Michael Bacall?

Edgar Wright: It ended up being a very organic process. There wasn't an amazing plan of action. We got very lucky the way it worked out. I was not going to write it at first because I thought I was going to be too busy on "Hot Fuzz," and then when I got together with Michael, we started collating the information we had. The longer we waited out, the more material we had from Bryan Lee O'Malley. He was so accessible and open to collaboration, and it kind of became an exchange of ideas. We'd written a draft when only three books existed. The fourth, fifth and six were just sketched out. Brian had vague plot ideas and a lot of those are in the film.

• The Screening Log: What kind of non-video game influences did you use in the making of this film?

Edgar Wright: The comedy and character is obviously coming from the book, and the action and video game stuff is an expansion of that, and I would say the thing that's been the biggest influence really was musicals because I had to create a level of reality whereby it would be acceptable for someone to explode into coins and have the story continue without people freaking out. The musical aspect of it was that I started to look at the similarities between classic kung-fu films and Hollywood musicals and how much similar they are and how much crossover there was. The stunt team on this film were all from Jackie Chan's fight school and Jackie Chan's favorite actor is Gene Kelly, John Woo's favorite film is West Side Story, and so there's a lot more crossover than people might assume. Not many martial arts fans are fans of Bob Fosse, you know, except me.

• The Screening Log: Brandon, do you share any qualities with Todd, your character?

Brandon Routh: More than you know. I'm not vegan, but I do partake in vegan fair and quite enjoy it. It's not given me the power of telekinesis yet. I do play music. I play instruments. I learned to play base, but it's not my best instrument. I grew up playing piano and trumpet, so there's that.

Edgar Wright: You can float?

Brandon Routh: I can float. I can. That type of character is something I wanted to play for a long time.

• The Screening Log: In terms of doing press, is there a question that keeps popping up you wish would go away?

Brandon Routh: Yeah. Do you have an evil ex?

Edgar Wright: Yeah, that one's come up a lot.

Brandon Routh: Even if we did, who's really going to talk about it?

Edgar Wright: You're not giving out their home address, are you?