Simon Pegg recently took part in a fashion photoshoot. Not that out of the ordinary, you might think, but the cerebral interview that accompanied it touched on the upcoming **The World's End **in a beautifully academic fashion.
Asked what ties together Shaun Of The Dead, **Hot Fuzz **and the upcoming The World's End - also known as The Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy or the Blood And Ice Cream trilogy - and the Mission: Impossible and Star Trek star had this to say:
"[Edgar Wright and I] make comedies and both love genre cinema but neither **Shaun Of The Dead **or **Hot Fuzz **are parodies. The World's End isn't a send up in any way, in fact, we've gone out of our way not to populate the film with references to other movies, in order to avoid that label."
Since The World's End is a movie about a slacker called Gary (Pegg) who reunites a group of friends (played by Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan and Nick Frost) to finish the pub crawl they abandoned years ago - until the apocalypse unexpectedly hits, anyway - you can dismiss any hopes you might have for Last Orders hat-tips.
"The theme that will bind the three films together is a preoccupation with the struggle of the individual against the collective," Pegg explains. "Shaun vs. zombies, Angel vs. the NWA, Gary King vs. (???)."
Whether that triple question mark - interroboom, perhaps?- indicates that Pegg has let slip something he'd rather not appear in print or simply an evil laugh on the part of the star is something that remains between Pegg and his interrogator.
But if you thought those two quotes were the limit to Mr. Pegg's highfalutin' thoughts, think again, because he had more hints to drop.
"Thematically, it will all make sense when the three films can be viewed consecutively. This sounds lofty but they form a dialectic sequence, which I hope film students will write essays about. **Shaun of the Dead = evolution, Hot Fuzz = devolution, ** World's End = revolution. Jesus, you can take the boy out of Bristol University drama department..."
Ladies, gentlemen and budding film students, get your essay-typing fingers ready, because Simon Pegg has given you a head start for your soon-to-be-published treatise on Wright and Pegg's oeuvre.
He's also given us a good opportunity to remind you of the date of The World's End's release, which is August 14. Vive la révolution! Meanwhile, you can read more from Pegg over at the Blake London site.