Edgar Wright can do no wrong, in this humble Screen Ranter’s opinion (or, at the very least, he has yet to). Shaun of the Dead was fantastic, Hot Fuzz was even better, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, while certainly disappointing in terms of box office returns, was somewhere in between. And that’s not even including his excellent Spaced TV show.
Ages ago, news broke that Wright and Simon Pegg—the Cary Grant to his Alfred Hitchcock, the Thelma to his Louise—would be teaming up again for The World’s End, the third entry in their so-called “The Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy”. Two-and-a-half years later, and there has been nary a peep about the film…until now.
io9 recently chatted with Edgar Wright about the status of World’s End. Because Shaun of the Dead was a zombie film and Hot Fuzz was a buddy-cop action film (with a dash of a suspense, a pinch of horror, and a whole lot of comedy), one might assume that Wright, Pegg, and Nick Frost would want to mess with another genre for their next outing. Not so, says Wright:
“I’m trying to go beyond that, rather, and tell stories. I think after Hot Fuzz one of the reasons we didn’t make a film straight away, was by the end of the Hot Fuzz press tour, people would only ask us that question. ‘What’s next? You’ve done zombies, you’ve done cops – what’s next?’ You start to think that people assume you have a blindfold and a dart board, and oh, okay, kung fu, let’s do that. I think what I would like to do now is to make stories that appeal to me.”
When asked about where the third movie was, development-wise, Wright was somewhat cagey:
“We have an idea and we still plan on writing it. I think Simon [Pegg] and I have to be in the same room. We’ve both been busy and so has Nick [Frost]. So I’d hope that maybe by the end of next year we’d start writing it […] or completely start from scratch.”
The end of next year to start writing it? Well, that’s—I mean—a whole year away!
Then, when asked whether or not the title that had previously been released, The World’s End, was still the same, and if that title indicated that the story would be post-apocalyptic, Wright was cagey still:
“Maybe [the title is The World’s End]. I don’t know. I think so. We liked that idea. It had a sort of resonance in a different way. It might be that we continue with that idea, or it might be that we start all over again. […] We never said it was post-apocalyptic movie, though. To be honest, in a weird way, I regret saying anything at all because then people start speculating. It’s more we probably shouldn’t have said anything at all. I’ve found that I regret speaking too soon about stuff. Because you end up sounding like the boy who cried wolf.”
Fair enough, Edgar Wright. Unfortunately, the only thing Wright was even slightly conclusive about was the precise ice cream that would be making an appearance in the third film. For those unaware, different Cornetto ice creams appear in both Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz—hence, “The Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy”—and the third film won’t be any different.
“[It’s true that Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream will appear in the movie] but I said that basically to have some kind of answer when people would ask me about it. […] There are only three flavors of Cornetto. So if we do it again, there is no other option.”
Next stop: The World’s End?
So there you have it. Maybe Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost will make The World’s End for their “The Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy”, maybe not. Maybe it’ll be post-apocalyptic, maybe it won’t be. Maybe it’ll be written at the end of next year or maybe it’ll be written forty-five years from now (if the world hasn’t ended by then). The only thing that’s certain here is that it won’t be about any single genre and it will have Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream in it. Yay?
Edgar Wright is still working on the script for Marvel’s Ant-Man. Meanwhile, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Seth Rogen are starring in Paul, set to be released March 18th, 2011.
