Pegg is a notable star and screenwriter in his own right. He can currently be seen on the most recent season of “The Boys,” and co-wrote the screenplays to “Hot Fuzz,” “The World’s End,” “Run Fatboy Run,” “Paul,” and “Star Trek Beyond.” Pegg also co-wrote the screenplay of “Shaun of the Dead” with Wright, making it a passion project for the pair. Pegg noted that the distribution rights to “Shaun” rest with Universal Pictures, and they have complete autonomy to remake or reboot the film all they want. Pegg, however, wouldn’t want it to happen. Nor, I suspect, would any of the film’s many fans.
For both the actor and the fanboys, the original is excellent and gains power from its intimacy. The film was based largely on how Pegg and his friend Nick Frost, who played Ed in “Shaun,” couldn’t, in real life, bear to leave their favorite pub, and how pathetic that impulse would be in a supernatural crisis. Pegg said:
“‘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 The Groucho, and we never did. We always wanted to be in The Shepherds.”
The Groucho is an upscale private members club in London, while the Shepherds Tavern was a lower-end local pub. Pegg loved the latter, and recalled his girlfriend (now his wife) being annoyed at his affinity for the pub.