When Shaun of the Dead came out in 2004, it was a surprise commercial success, both in the U.K and abroad. On a budget of just over $6 million, Edgar Wright’s first movie made over $30 million worldwide, and was a massive blockbuster hit on DVD. Rather than film a rumoured sequel, Wright re-teamed with his co-writer and star Simon Pegg to make Hot Fuzz, which would do for buddy cop action movie what Shaun of the Dead did for zombie movies. Once again Nick Frost would co-star, in this story of a super cop who gets relocated to a sleepy rural town that winds up being a hotbed of crime and corruption. Wright’s conception of the film called for American action-movie style setpieces, but the idea was also to make the film distinctly British, with Wright assembling a who’s who of British icons, including the former star of The Equalizer and The Wicker Man, Edward Woodward, Jim Broadbent, and, in a huge casting coup, the former James Bond Timothy Dalton, who would play the film’s main villain. Furthering the 007 connections, they also nabbed franchise composer David Arnold to write the score.
Like Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz would be a significant hit, earning $80 million on a modest budget that fell somewhere between $12-16 million. It was big enough that it allowed Pegg and Wright to complete their Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy with The World’s End. In this episode of Revisited, written by Cody Hamman, edited by Juan Jimenez and narrated by Travis Hopson, we dig into this comedy classic.