The original movie was so personal to Pegg that he can’t imagine a new take on the concept.
The horror comedy Shaun of the Dead put filmmaker Edgar Wright and actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost on the map, and while the following of the film grows with each passing year, a continuation of that world hasn’t emerged over the past 20 years. Pegg recently recalled how studio Universal Pictures owns the rights to the property and could reboot it if they wanted, though if they did, he and his collaborators would be “incensed” by the notion, due to how personal the core storyline is to their own lives. Luckily, there have been no substantial talks of ever attempting to replicate the film’s successes, so Pegg and company can rest easy for now.
“I mean, Universal owns it. If they choose to reboot it, then they can if they want I guess. Although Edgar and I would be incensed,” Pegg revealed to The Hollywood Reporter. “Shaun of the Dead is incredibly personal. There’s so much of us in that film. The whole joke of Ed and Shaun not being able to ever come out of The Winchester was real. That was about Nick and I, that was about our decision to just stay in a North London pub. Edgar was always in town. He was always in Soho, and he always wanted us to come into town and hang out at [London private members’ club] The Groucho, and we never did. We always wanted to be in The Shepherds [pub]. My girlfriend, now my wife, was the same. She was like, ‘Are we going to The Shepherds again?’ That inspired that whole storyline.”
He continued, “The whole thing with Shaun’s mum, the stepdad, I had a problematic relationship with my stepfather. It was Edgar’s idea to kill the mum. I couldn’t believe it when he said that, but it was the best decision. There’s so much of our own heart and soul in that film. If someone was to reboot it, it would be a cynical and exploitative exercise. I would hope that people are in love with our Shaun enough to resist a reboot. Gary King [Pegg’s character in The World’s End] as well, that was a lot about my own alcoholism. A really personal film.”
Pegg’s remarks imply he would be upset if a reboot either attempted to replicate the personal elements that were incorporated into the adventure or if a project merely took the title and went in an entirely different direction. The actor went on to cite another project that, while a compelling movie in its own right, cashed in on a more recognizable title.
“I always got annoyed at Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake — it’s a great movie. It’s really exciting. But I hated the fact they called it Dawn of the Dead, because that was George [Romero]’s film,” Pegg pointed out. “They could have called it ‘Deadish,’ which was a great line in the film that one of the actors used, and it still would have been a great film, but when you just take a title because people recognize it, it’s so disrespectful to the original.”
Luckily, while there was a brief period in which an American remake as a TV series was considered for a reboot of Shaun of the Dead, no substantial reports have emerged in the 20 years since it was released.
Stay tuned for the potential future of Shaun of the Dead.
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