UK readers were no doubt watching **The World’s End **for the 23rd time during Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s appearance at Comic-Con 2013, but US fans have a good few weeks to wait.
This means that news from the three of them was a little thin on the ground in Hall H, but as they were genuinely that funny, here’s a round-up of what went down in San Diego, as well as some almost entirely spurious hints at what the trio might do next together (and when they may end up getting around to doing it).
After the American trailer was shown – which emphasised that Newton Haven’s Golden Mile is a bar crawl and not, say, a pub crawl – Wright ‘n’ Pegg ‘n’ Frost talked about Matt Smith turning up to their World’s End party the night before (“Doctor Who was at our party!” – Pegg), before drawing parallels between The Doctor and Pegg’s character, Gary King.
“If you’ve ever watched Doctor Who and wished he was hammered, then boy do we have a movie for you,” said Wright. “Just call him Doctor Hooch.” “Our TARDIS in this one is beer,” added Pegg.
After that, there were explanations for what a Cornetto actually is (“It’s a British confection. They might export them over here if this does well” – Pegg), as well as discussions of what it’s like to work away from each other (“Sometimes you forget that breaking wind isn’t funny to everybody” – Pegg / “I think it has international appeal” – Frost). In fact, Frost even went so far as to say: “It’s like having a brief love affair, and coming back to your marriage and it only makes it stronger.”
As for the next movie they might do together, Pegg was vague but encouraging. It won’t be thematically linked to the Cornetto trilogy, but “…the next thing we do together won’t have to abide by [the trilogy’s rules], maybe it could be set in the past… [Unfortunately] we’re not due to have our next idea until four weeks’ time.”
“We’re aiming for the Seattle baggage carousel for our next idea,” said Wright. “We’re like the Haley’s Comet of British comedy,” added Frost.
And if you were looking for Ant-Man news from Wright, he was happy to oblige… in a fashion: “I wanted to announce, as well as doing Marvel’s Ant-man, I’ll be doing a spin-off movie: Abdoman And The Mighty Thorax. In 3D!”
Elsewhere in the panel’s fan questions section of the event, a woman wearing a big cape covered in buttons – Brits, read badges for buttons – was dubbed ‘Button Lady’ and encouraged to fight a man with a moustache and a leather jacket known only as ‘Machete’. Note: this wasn’t actually Machete, and yes, you did have to be there, but still, this will explain Twitter for you for a little while.
The World’s End is out in the US on August 23, whereas the UK, as you may have worked out by now, already has its greedy barstools-for-hands on it.