The Wright Stuff

Having scored substantial cult hits with Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz, Tarantino-endorsed English director Edgar Wright relocated Stateside to make his new movie, the eagerly awaited comic book adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs The World.

Tara Brady, 09 Sep 2010

“Weren’t we talking about Eli Roth, before?” asks Edgar Wright as I walk through the door of his suite in Dublin’s Merrion Hotel. Five years may have passed since Hot Press last caught up with the English director, but he’s not one to forget a conversation about zombies and ace genre filmmakers.

Back then Mr. Wright had just made the leap from TV to feature films with a little movie called Shaun Of The Dead. The film, which starred Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Jessica Stevenson - his old muckers from the cult Channel 4 hit, Spaced – went on to garner decent reviews and did moderate box office in his native Britain. Then, without warning or precedent, it became a top ten smash in the USA.

“It was kind of mad,” says the Dorset-born director. “It did okay in the UK. We didn’t embarrass ourselves. It was only when the international feedback started coming in that it became this thing. It was incredible. It was something you’d dream about but never really expected to happen.”

Indeed, Shaun has gone on to spawn everything from action figures to affectionate clone movies, most notably the incoming Havana-based tribute, Juan Of The Dead.

“I’ve only seen the poster,” says Wright. “But I do hope to see it. It’s very pleasing to have created the easiest Halloween costume of all time.”

In the intervening years, Mr. Wright has given us Hot Fuzz - a winning marriage of cop drama and Wicker Man inspired horror-comedy - and now Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, a $90 million adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s achingly hip graphic novel sequence. For the uninitiated, Scott Pilgrim (played by Michael Cera in the film) is a bass guitarist in a struggling garage band who hooks up with high-schooler Knives Chau (Ellen Wong) right before he meets Girl-of-his-Dreams Ramona V. Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). In order to win the object of his affections, Scott – who views the world as an ongoing video game – must battle Ramona’s Seven Evil Exes, a motley crew including Fantastic Four’s Chris Evans, Superman Return’s Brandon Routh and the endlessly entertaining Jason Schwartzman. If that wasn’t enticing enough, the movie also features such up-and-coming talents as Anna Kendrick (Mr. Wright’s current real life Ms. Right), Alison Pill, and the fabulous Kieran Culkin. How on each did this production get so many hot names in the one place, I wonder?

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