Rumors and speculation about when, exactly, Edgar Wright will begin shooting Ant-Man have intensified over the past couple months, following the premiere of test footage shown at Marvel’s Comic-Con panel this past summer. However, before he gets to that gestating superhero movie, Wright has another project to make: The World’s End, a new comedic collaboration with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
World’s End will serve as the thematic conclusion to the trio’s ‘Blood & Ice Cream’ trilogy (a.k.a. ‘Three Flavors Cornetto’) – so named for recurring scenes where characters snack on a certain flavor of Cornetto ice cream – following Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, with a script once again co-written by Pegg and Wright. The cast includes players from previous installments such as Paddy Considine and Martin Freeman, whose popularity in the U.S. has increased exponentially recently (thanks to his ongoing role as Dr. Watson on the BBC’s Sherlock).
Shaun of the Dead served as Pegg, Frost, and Wright’s love letter to George A. Romero zombie fare, while Hot Fuzz was a salute to American action cinema that melded buddy-cop conventions with British social satire (similar to how Shaun combined the zombie sub-genre with Brit rom-com tropes). It appears that The World’s End will follow in those films’ footsteps by putting a funny British spin on the apocalyptic sub-genre, judging by the official synopsis:
In The World’s End, 20 years after attempting an epic pub crawl, five childhood friends reunite when one of them becomes hellbent on trying the drinking marathon again. They are convinced to stage an encore by mate Gary King (Simon Pegg), a 40-year-old man trapped at the cigarette end of his teens, who drags his reluctant pals to their hometown and once again attempts to reach the fabled pub – The World’s End. As they attempt to reconcile the past and present, they realize the real struggle is for the future, not just theirs but humankind’s. Reaching The World’s End is the least of their worries.
Additional cast members on The World’s End include Eddie Marsan (Sherlock Holmes), and Rosamund Pike (Wrath of the Titans). Wright is receiving assistance behind the scenes from trusted collaborators like director of photography Bill Pope (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), production designer Marcus Rowland (Hot Fuzz) and editor Paul Machliss (Spaced), among others.
Pegg and Frost co-wrote and headlined last year’s sci-fi comedy Paul, but the film is not widely regarded as being on the same level as their Wright collaborations. However, every film and television project the trio have worked on together to date has earned them a strong cult following among moviegoers, as well as praise from the critical community. That’s to say: we have little to no reason right now to suspect that World’s End will prove to be their first ‘misfire.’
We’ll let you know when The World’s End snags a release date. Meanwhile, you can catch Freeman on the big screen this winter in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, with Pegg returning to theaters next summer in Star Trek Into Darkness.
