Today sees the release of SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD on DVD and Blu-Ray. I’m heading over to get my copy of the Blu-Ray (which includes a dvd copy AND a digital copy I can download onto my iPod and laptop) later this afternoon. Blu-Ray should cost about $30 not including taxes.

Last Friday night I went down to the Bloor Cinema for the free fan screening of the film, followed by a Q&A with director Edgar Wright, Bryan Lee O’Malley and others. The lines of people attempting to get in were astounding – there’s certainly huge support for the movie in Toronto (where it is set — the rest of Canada, please don’t hold that against the film!). Thanks to the Beguiling for hooking Debbie, Jason and I up with passes.

It was amazing how well the film plays with an eager audience, and Wright’s suggestion that we cheer whenever Canadian money appears on screen was perfect – as looneys and twoonies appear during a lot of the movie’s key dramatic moments. Quite a few people were saying it reminded them of what public showings of the cult film the Rocky Horror Picture Show are like, with audience participation – people yelling at the screen, dressing up as their favourite characters and what not. Hopefully the Bloor and other indie theatres will consider booking and promoting further public screenings.

Yes, the movie was a big disappointment at the box office, despite the overwhelmingly positive reviews. It’s just too hard to categorize just what Scott Pilgrim is other than it is a fun film by a visionary director based on a great series of graphic novels. I have no doubts about the success this film will see on home video, as it’s already a cult classic. The movie inspired a tremendous boost to the graphic novel series, which is being repackaged as a boxed set this week in bookshops and comic stores. With over a million copies in print, SP the graphic novel series had a huge impact on graphic novel sales this year and is inspiring an entire generation of young cartoonists.

Listening to them talk and watching the making of documentary (which is on the dvd/br) O’Malley’s involvement in the movie was a lot more than we expected, as he and Wright explained the collaborative interaction they and the rest of the movie production team had during the entire pre-through-post production process. His involvement definitely makes me feel a lot better about being able to hype the film here on the JSA site.

Scott Pilgrim Vol. 6: Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour is eligible for consideration in the Cartoonist category for the 2011 Joe Shuster Awards, which will be presented in Calgary, AB on Saturday, June 18th. We’ll see if SP6 earns O’Malley his 6th nomination. He won the category in 2006 for Volume 2.