Following the Cornetto Trilogy, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, and Baby Driver, Edgar Wright is entering different territory for his sixth feature film (seventh, if we’re counting A Fistful Of Fingers). His upcoming movie Last Night In Soho will be an all-out psychological horror, eschewing the laughs of Shaun Of The Dead for a more hardened genre exploration set in the seedy, neon-lit heart of London. Details on the film’s plot remain under wraps for now – but in Empire’s 2020 Preview Issue, we have an exclusive look at the director on set with one of his leading ladies, Anya Taylor-Joy’s Sandy. And yes, if she looks like her character, Sandy, hails from the 1960s, that’s for a very good reason.
For much of Wright’s movie takes place in the London of the Swinging Sixties; a time period with which his lead character, Thomasin McKenzie’s Eloise, is obsessed and, through a mysterious connection with Taylor-Joy’s character, gets to experience.
“There’s something I have in common with the lead character in that I’m afflicted with nostalgia for a decade I didn’t live in,” Wright tells Empire. “You think about ‘60s London – what would that be like? Imagine if you knew everything you knew now, and went back. I’m taking a premise whereby you have a character who, in a sort of abstract way, gets to travel in time. And the reality of the decade is maybe not what she imagines. It has an element of ‘be careful what you wish for’.” Plenty to ponder there – and of course it makes total sense that Wright is once again twisting his genres, as he’s tended to across the rest of his work.
Pick up Empire’s 2020 Preview Issue from Thursday 31 October to read more about Last Night In Soho – and the other massive movies coming to the big screen next year. Last Night In Soho is coming to UK cinemas on 18 September 2020. Any chance we can hop forward and watch it now, Edgar?