Rather than sacrificing the cult-classic film’s reputation for a few easy dollars, Shaun of the Dead star and co-writer Simon Pegg believes the film’s story should – unlike the zombies that antagonize its cast – be permanently laid to rest.
Pegg pushed back against the idea of a second, red-coated outing for the titular Shaun while speaking to The Hollywood Reporter’s Lily Ford regarding his recent reprisal of his role as Hugh Sr. in Amazon’s The Boys adaptation.
Following a lengthy discussion about his role in the superhero series, Pegg was eventually asked, in light of the fact that the film will be celebrating the 20th birthday of its theatrical release this September 24th, if he and original director Edgar Wright were interested in ever revisiting The Winchester.
In turn, the actor laughed, “I mean, Universal [Pictures] owns it. If they choose to reboot it, then they can if they want I guess. Although Edgar and I would be incensed.”
Pressed as to why he felt so strongly against the specific prospect of rebooting the film, Pegg detailed, “Shaun of the Dead is incredibly personal.”
“There’s so much of us in that film,” said Pegg. “The whole joke of Ed and Shaun not being able to ever come out of The Winchester was real. That was about Nick [Frost] 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.”
“The whole thing with Shaun’s mum, the stepdad, I had a problematic relationship with my stepfather,” he continued. “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. And the thought of anyone just nicking the 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.”
“They could have called it Deadish,” he argued, “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.”
In light of Pegg’s noted apprehension to the idea of a reboot, Ford then reiterated her original question, “No sequel?”
“I don’t think so,” replied her guest. “I’m a big fan of sequels. Some of my favorite films are sequels: Empire Strikes Back, Aliens. I’m in a couple of film franchises which repeat and reboot, and it’s not that I decry sequels in any way, but I think some stories end. Some stories have a beginning, a middle and an end.”
“If you were to see Shaun again, if the zombies came back, there’s just not a story to tell it,” Pegg ultimately explained. “We’d have to reset everything that we created in Shaun of the Dead, the journey that Shaun goes on and completes. He becomes a new person, but we’d have to then dismantle that in order to give him a new arc. Why? The best thing we can do with cinema is to challenge people and get them to see things they haven’t seen before and experience new things. Entertainment is the most overrated function of art.”
