Netflix’s Series Cancellation Policy Scares Off Scott Pilgrim Creators as Fans Demand a 2nd Season
Netflix’s animated film series Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is based on the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels written and illustrated by the developer of the series, Bryan Lee O’Malley. The series stars the original ensemble cast from the 2010 film adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. The animated series is both a sequel and a remake of the graphic novel and the movie.
The series has been received well so far so fans were obviously hoping for another season. However, with Netflix’s recent obsession with canceling even some of the best series out of the blue, it was uncertain whether or not it would happen. Developer Bryan Lee O’Malley saved the audience the tormenting wait as he announced the fate of the show.
Netflix’s Scott Pilgrim Takes Off Unlikely to Have Another Season
Given how things escalated in the first episode itself, fans were bound to be hooked on the series. So, it does not seem surprising that fans demand a second season of the series. However, the fulfillment of this demand has a tiny hiccup: the creators never planned to have a second season.
Recently, the show’s creators Bryan Lee O’Malley and BenDavid Grabinski opened up about their thoughts on a second season as O’Malley told Rolling Stone:
“It’s self-contained for now. We loved what we did. We put it all in there. We don’t have any ideas lying on the floor. We pretty much put them all in. I never say never, but right now, it seems like it would take about 50 different miracles simultaneously for another season to happen. So we’ll see. People are always complaining about how shows get canceled after one season. So we hedged our bets immediately, and tried to make a self-contained one season.”
Bryan Lee O’Malley’s point seems fair enough, given how Netflix has been canceling shows left and right, for instance, Shadow and Bone which was canceled despite the announcement of a spin-off series and even some sequels.
Netflix’s Scott Pilgrim Series is Quite Different from the Source Material
Netflix’s Scott Pilgrim Takes Off follows the titular character Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) who is a slacker part-time musician residing in Toronto and plays bass in an indie band. He has a pretty simple life until he falls for the mysterious delivery girl Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and ends up being the target of her seven evil exes. Things take a turn when Scott loses to Ramona’s first ex Matthew Patel (Satya Bhabha) and is apparently killed.
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Pulling the rug from under the feet of the viewers by killing (or so it appears at least) Scott Pilgrim was a clearly-thought-out decision because it would relieve the creators of the pressure of living up to the books. Bryan Lee O’Malley told IGN:
“That’s part of where the big swing really helps. Because we can hang all these new plot lines and reversals for characters on the one big change, and then I can just put the books on the shelf and not have to worry about it quite so much, being slavish to them.”
O’Malley and BenDavid Grabinski wanted to give the series a makeover by exploring the characters and not sticking to just the original plan of having Scott Pilgrim just fight all of Ramona Flowers’ evil exes.
