Small, but notable news from Comic-Con 2010 and the “Paul” roundtables with Simon Pegg, which our contributor Melissa Molina attended.
While still a possibility, reports that Pegg is set to reprise his role in “Mission Impossible 4” may have been premature he said. ” ‘MI4’ is up in the air,” Pegg cautioned. “That’s been announced but my deal is not in place. When you join franchise films they tend to dominate your career in a way. You become beholden to a certain kind of series and you don’t have time to do your own stuff so much.”
And his own “stuff” is exactly what Pegg is trying to find the time to carve out for. Take the the final installment of “The Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy”, “The World’s End” with ‘Paul’ co-star Nick Frost and director Edgar Wright that we discussed this morning. Pegg is more than game to do it, but it’s all a matter of finding time in both the actor and filmmaker’s schedules.
“We’re looking to find the time to write the third part in that story that we started with ‘Shaun Of The Dead,’ we’re both very excited to get back to that,” he said of working with Wright again, noting how this third collaboration could be their best. “It’s been brilliant and been fun and now we’ve both grown as filmmakers and to come back together and write something[would be great].”
But Pegg notes the “Paul” experience — a road trip comedy about two Comic-Con nerds who stumble across an alien in Area 51 (voiced by Seth Rogen) — with director Greg Mottola, was a cherished one that he’d love to repeat again soon. “All I wanted to do after shooting ‘Paul’ was to make another movie with Greg,” he said. “It was a wonderful experience and really, there’s just not enough hours in the day.” Sounds like a good problem to have.
“Paul,” which sounds like it’s heavily inspired by early Amblin-era Steven Spielberg films boasts a tremendous comedic cast which, on top of Pegg, Nick Frost and Seth Rogen includes Sigourney Weaver, Jane Lynch, Jeffrey Tambor, Kristen Wiig, Jason Bateman, Bill Hader, Blythe Danner, Joe Lo Truglio (“Superbad”) and John Carroll Lynch (Marge’s husband in “Fargo”). The film lands in theaters March 18, 2011. – Reporting by Melissa Molina
