Edgar Wright has been a busy man. After spending most of the year making Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, he has spent the past few months getting ready for the movie's release today on DVD and Blu-ray. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is based on Bryan Lee O'Malley's series of graphic novels, which revolve around the titular Scott Pilgrim. Pilgrim is a 23-year-old slacker living in Toronto, where he spends his days playing videogames, playing bass in the alright-to-crappy band Sex Bob-omb, leeching off his snarky gay roommate, Wallace, and hanging out with his 17-year-old girlfriend, Knives Chau (don't worry, they haven't even held hands). This all changes when he meets Ramona Flowers, an American delivery girl with seven evil ex-boyfriends who'd love nothing more than to destroy anyone who tries to date her. The series basically involves Scott's attempts to grow up, keep his relationship working and defeat the evil exes in hyperstylized videogame/kung fu-style interludes.

Wright, director of the cult darlings Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, recently held a conference call with college newspapers from across the country, including the Justice. For about an hour, we all had access to what went into making Scott Pilgrim-and what we found out didn't disappoint.

Perhaps the biggest surprise came right out of the gate: Scott Pilgrim had been in the works from almost the moment the first book was released. Wright explained that he "just started reading it as soon as it was published in 2004. ... I was already in conversation with Bryan Lee O'Malley... before the second one was published, so we were already working on the film as he was writing [the books]."

The script even "dates back to 2006 when there were only three books published," with O'Malley himself heavily involved in the production. As it turns out, some of O'Malley's scrapped ideas for the comic, such as "the twins [two of Ramona's evil exes] being musical artists" were picked up by Wright for the movie. The influence went the other way as well. Wright cites a part of the sixth book where "Scott has been away from Toronto for a long time and everything's changed" as stemming from O'Malley's experience coming back to Toronto to work on the movie, after he had been living in the United States for a few years.

Wright, who is most famous for his affectionate mash-ups of well-known genres, explained that a similar sensibility drew him to Scott Pilgrim. The blending of comic book/action tropes with a realistic, character-driven story was unique, and he wanted to "translate that visual imagination to the screen." Going on, Wright explained that what made this so attractive was that "nothing quite like it really existed. ... [There are] things that you accept in comics you can't do on the big screen, but we wanted to play with the universe a little bit."

But for all the flash, Wright's previous movies and O'Malley's books both had an emotional core under the pop-culture references, and Wright made clear that Scott Pilgrim was no different. "Contrary to popular belief, I don't just try and cram as many references as possible," Wright said, explaining that even though the style of the comics spoke to him, the characters were what kept him hooked. As it happens, Wright found that despite the generational gap (Wright is 36 and O'Malley was writing the series in his early 20s), he could still relate to Scott, saying that he'd "been like Scott and had been wrapped up in my own bubble of existence when I was a teenager. ... I can vibe with a lot of the books, and that's what attracted me to it."

Despite its relatively weak box office showing, movies like Scott Pilgrim live and die by their fans, who can turn it into a flop or a cult hit. Wright's anecdotes about the fans look to put Scott Pilgrim comfortably in the latter position, including "one guy in Seattle who's seen it 31 times and photo-blogged his ticket stubs to prove it." However, Wright doesn't seem too concerned about the film's financial prospects.

"I like it when people are talking ... about their responses to the film," he said, going on to say that most media outlets "spend twice as much time talking about box office results than they do about the films themselves" and that he turns instead to what the fans are saying. It's clear that Wright makes his movies with a certain sense of love for both the film itself and the viewer. He takes what he likes and what he relates to and works from there, a formula that's gotten him plenty of success so far.

Wright explained that at the end of the day, it's not really about the money. "I'm very overwhelmed by the response I get from fans," he said. "That kind of means everything to me.