Simon Pegg recently spoke at lengths with Collider about the handful of project he’s involved in including Greg Mottola’s “Paul”; his as-of-yet-titled third and final ‘Ice Cream Trilogy’ film with Edgar Wright and Nick Frost; Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg’s “The Adventures of Tintin: Secret Of The Unicorn” as well as touching on Wright’s “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.”
On “Paul,” Pegg revealed that filming will begin on June 8th with a ten week shoot planned in New Mexico. A great cast is being assembled and will be a “coming together of the two comedy communities that exist in America and the U.K.” Wow, that sounds awesome. Bill Hader had hoped he’d be part of the cast, but there’s no confirmation yet.
Pegg further talked about the plot of “Paul” which he described as “the story of two comic book geeks, fanboys types who go to Comic Con. They’re on a trip of a life time across America. They’re going to go to Comic Con, they’re going to go to geeky spots they want to go. When they visit Area 51, they happen upon an alien who’s out there and he enlists them to help him to get to a point where they need to meet his pick up ship. And so these two guys end up getting involved in the craziest adventure they could possibly imagine. It’s like their dream come true. ” Work in still currently being undertaken on the creation of the title character, Paul, who will be a mixture of practical effects and CGI. Filming for “Paul” at Comic Con, where the story takes the two protagonists, is a possibility.
He also added that the concept of “Paul” began as a joke on the set of “Shaun Of The Dead.” When Pegg and Frost were asked by a producer about their next project, the two decided to bluff their way through. “It’s set in America and there’s a couple of guys and an alien,” the two conjured to which the producer replied “Alright, let’s do it” and thus “Paul” was born. After the script was written, Pegg and Frost were on the lookout for a new director as their usual go-to man, Wright, was busy with ‘Scott Pilgrim.’ After seeing ‘Superbad,’ the two knew Mottola was the man for the job: “The whole point of ‘Paul’ was that we wanted to make a film with a certain feel to it. And Greg has a real lightness of touch. He has an amazing ability to bring like an indie feeling to a more mainstream film and that’s kind of what we wanted to do.”
Regarding his cameo in ‘Tintin’ with Nick Frost as Thompson and Thomson, Pegg revealed that during the filming process, the motion-captured rendering of their characters were visible to them though the quality was that of “a very good [Nintendo 64] game.” He compared the current obscurity of the character Tintin in the U.S. to that of Indiana Jones before “Raiders Of The Last Ark” and spoke of Spielberg’s first encounters with Tintin.
“Someone said to Steven Spielberg after ‘Raiders,’ ‘It’s abit like Tintin isn’t it?’ and Steven didn’t know who he was and then researched him and found this wealth of story. Now finally all these years later has got around with Peter Jackson to getting it up onscreen. I think it’s going to be amazing.” Pegg also noted that he and Frost may possibly be returning to New Zealand later in the year to do their role in the second film.
As a good friend as well as frequent collaborator with Edgar Wright, Pegg then took to talking about his thoughts and feelings on the prospects of ‘Scott Pilgrim’: “I know for a fact that his making incredible stuff out there in Toronto right now and I know ‘Scott Pilgrim’ will blow the lid off everything when it’s seen cause I just get that feeling talking to him, seeing what his doing over there, I know it’s going to be great.”
Pegg, Frost and Wright’s next collaboration – the third and last installment of their “Blood and Ice Cream” trilogy (also known as their “Three Colors Cornetto”) which has been tentatively titled “The World’s End” was revealed to be on hold until the trio return to Britain after their work on ‘Scott Pilgrim’ and ‘Paul.’
“I feel like now, we’re so much more mature than we were when we started ‘Shaun Of The Dead’,’ Pegg confessed. “We know a lot more. We’re more wise. We’re more equipped. I really think we’re going to write something very special for this and we’ve had a lot of ideas and we’ve poked around and had chats and big laughs about the possibilities of what we’re going to do.”
All this while his latest role as Scotty in J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” is set for release this Friday. The world is set for a whole lot more Simon Pegg.