Edgar Wright

The apocalypse has never seemed so funny. The new trailer for “The World’s End,” the latest film from director Edgar Wright,  has arrived, and judging from the clip, the movie promises to deliver the same charming brand of humor Wright and his leading men Simon Pegg and Nick Frost pioneered in such films as “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz.” “The World’s End,” due in theaters Aug. 23, upends the usual Pegg-Frost dynamic, however, with Pegg playing Gary King, a (lovable?) loser trapped in a state of arrested development who recruits his old pals — including Frost’s responsible attorney Andy — to finish a famous pub crawl in their hometown that they had once unsuccessfully attempted in their younger days. Naturally, things don’t go quite according to plan, and Gary and Andy, along with pals Steven (Paddy Considine), Oliver […]

“The World’s End,” the new film from Edgar Wright starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, doesn’t hit theaters until Aug. 23, but fans got an early taste of the apocalyptic British comedy thanks to a just-unveiled UK teaser trailer. The movie upends the usual Pegg-Frost dynamic, with Pegg playing Gary King, a (lovable?) loser trapped in a state of arrested development, who recruits his old pals — including Frost’s responsible attorney Andy — to attempt to finish a famous pub crawl in their hometown that they had once unsuccessfully attempted in their younger days. Naturally, things don’t go quite according to plan. The film, which opens in UK cinemas July 19, also features Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine and Rosamund Pike, and represents the culmination of Wright, Pegg and Frost’s “Blood & Ice Cream” trilogy, which began with the 2004 zombie […]

The 2012 Hero Complex Film Festival is history now but before we move on (yes, Comic-Con awaits) we wanted to share an email that came in from James Gelberg, a bright and remarkably poised 15-year-old who attends Valley Christian High School in Cerritos. In his freshman year Gelberg  started a Classic Film Club and asked if I would stop by for a club screening of “Batman”  for a Q&A with the members. That led to a great visit, and when Gelberg asked if we needed an eager volunteer during the festival I told him he could help out with our expanded trivia contests by keeping track of questions, handing out prizes, etc. This is his account of the weekend, which started with an already-scheduled school trip to San Diego and then a mad dash back to the festival at L.A. Live. If you’d told me […]

Simon Pegg, co-writer and star of “Shaun of the Dead,” surprised Hero Complex Film Festival attendees Friday night, joining director Edgar Wright on stage. The Q&A — at L.A. Live in downtown Los Angeles — capped a zombie-themed opening night, which included a screening of “Shaun of the Dead” as well as Zack Snyder’s 2004 remake of “Dawn of the Dead,” a highlights reel of “The Walking Dead” Season 2 and a Q&A with Snyder and “The Walking Dead” creator Robert Kirkman. Wright would not discuss his Marvel “Antman” film project, only saying “there might be” some new developments. “I have to give a spectacularly vague non-answer,” Wright said, but credited Marvel producer Kevin Feige for having the courage to build “The Avengers” franchise from the ground up. Wright and Pegg did talk briefly about “World’s End,” the upcoming third installment […]

2012 HERO COMPLEX FILM FESTIVAL It might be a good time to work on your cricket swing  – Edgar Wright is bringing “Shaun of the Dead” to the 2012 Hero Complex Film Festival. The always-witty British filmmaker will be on stage at 10 p.m. on May 18 to look back on the 2004 cult comedy that marked his feature-film directorial debut and opened doors that led to him to “Hot Fuzz,” “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” and Marvel’s planned “Ant-Man” project. “Shaun of the Dead” also introduced many American fans to Simon Pegg, the title star, Wright’s co-writer on the movie and an actor with ramping popcorn prominence these days thanks to the “Mission: Impossible” and “Star Trek” franchises. The film grossed $30 million worldwide, and its mix of the daft and the diabolical had a lot of bite with critics such as Nev […]

The actor takes his character, Moses, from being unsympathetic early in the movie to someone the audience roots for. John Boyega, the star of the new kids-versus-aliens movie “Attack the Block,” didn’t have to look far for inspiration for his character — a hoodlum, thief and recently recruited drug dealer. The big-screen newcomer grew up in South London, not far from where his character, 15-year-old Moses, leads a gang of hard-luck youths flirting with delinquency as they defend their public housing complex against vicious beasties from space. “London is very multicultural; everything’s together,” said the soft-spoken Boyega, whose focus makes him seem older off-screen than his 19 years. “I don’t need to walk five miles or stay with thugs to understand what’s going on. And ideally, I don’t like to name them as thugs, because I don’t know who they […]

New alien movie “Attack the Block” and the latest installment in the vampire franchise “Underworld” shared Screen Gems’ Hall H time slot at Comic-Con International on Friday afternoon, bringing Kate Beckinsale, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish to the stage. Joe Cornish, whose screenwriting credits include Steven Spielberg’s upcoming comic-book adaptation “The Adventures of Tintin,” makes his directorial debut with “Attack the Block.” In creating the story for “Attack,” Cornish said he was inspired by movies such as “Gremlins,” “Critters” and Spielberg’s own “E.T.” “I grew up in South London, and I loved ’80s creature features … that take reality like a suburban environment, a world we can recognize, and then fuse it with fantasy,” Cornish said. “I wanted to make a movie like that.” But instead of suburbia, Cornish’s alien invasion takes place in a gritty urban ‘hood.  “Our aliens wish […]

Over at 24 Frames, our must-read sister blog, there’s news about the Ant-Man film. Marvel Comics fans who’ve been clamoring for Edgar Wright to get to the insect-like business of writing “Ant-Man” may have a reason to feel happy. The director this week picked up the pen on the movie’s script for the first time in more than two years. Wright, who came on in 2006 to write and direct a take on the arthropodal superhero, said Tuesday in an interview with 24 Frames that with much of the international promotion for “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” now behind him, he’s free again to write on “Ant-Man” — the first time he’ll do that since he started developing “Pilgrim.” (He had previously written a first draft of the script.) In fact, the director had just come from a dinner meeting […]