Edgar Wright To Direct Sony's GRASSHOPPER JUNGLE And Will Make BABY DRIVER Next

Deadline reports that Sony's Matt Tolmach (Amazing Spider-Man 1-2) has tapped Edgar Wright (Shaun of The Dead, Hot Fuzz, World's End) to direct the film adaptation of Andrew Smith's novel Grasshopper Jungle. It's a big move for Edgar Wright, who just parted-ways with Marvel Studios over Ant-Man rewrites. A project he had been working on for almost a decade. Grasshopper Jungle sounds interesting enough of a concept, and seems like familiar ground for Wright.

"Grasshopper Jungle, which is best described as Stand By Me meets Attack The Block, seems right in Wright’s wheelhouse. It’s a coming-of-age story that focuses on an Iowa teen trying to come to grips with his own raging hormones and sexual feelings as he and his cohorts cause a deadly genetically engineered plague that unleashes an army of 6-foot-tall praying mantises. Those bugs live the life these guys wish for, acting on an insatiable appetite for fighting, food, and fornicating."

It's also noted that his next film will indeed be his self-scripted Baby Driver. An action flick which would be something a bit more action genre-forward, and less comedic focused. Sounds like Edgar might be choosing his projects a bit more carefully from now on.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

NEW TRAILER ROUND-UP: The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug, The Wolverine, 300: Rise Of An Empire, The Wolf Of Wall Street, Pacific Rim, World's End And Elysium

FIRST LOOK: Official Cast Photo From Edgar Wright's THE WORLD'S END

New Poster For Edgar Wright's WORLD'S END

Paddy Considine And Rosamund Pike Join WORLD'S END

Variety reports that Paddy Considine (Red Riding, Hot Fuzz) and Rosamund Pike (An Education, Die Another Day) have joined the cast of Edgar Wright's World's End. The film is the final installment of Wright and Simon Pegg's trilogy.

20 years after attempting an epic pub crawl, five childhood friends reunite when one of them becomes hell bent on trying the drinking marathon again. They are convinced to stage an encore by mate Gary King, a 40-year old man trapped at the cigarette end of his teens, who drags his reluctant pals to their home town and once again attempts to reach the fabled pub, The World’s End. As they attempt to reconcile the past and present, they realize the real struggle is for the future, not just theirs but humankind’s. Reaching The World’s End is the least of their worries.

'WORLD'S END' To Feature An Invasion Of Flesh-Eating Alien Plants?

The Cornetto Trilogy is finally coming to end with Edgar Wright's World's End headed to theaters next spring. We recently got a synopsis which is as follow: 20 years after attempting an epic pub crawl, five childhood friends reunite when one of them becomes hell bent on trying the drinking marathon again. They are convinced to stage an encore by mate Gary King, a 40-year old man trapped at the cigarette end of his teens, who drags his reluctant pals to their home town and once again attempts to reach the fabled pub, The World’s End. As they attempt to reconcile the past and present, they realize the real struggle is for the future, not just theirs but humankind’s. Reaching The World’s End is the least of their worries. 

While vomit seems to cover the "green" aspect of the film we had expected aliens to be the main baddies. The plot rundown never really explores the apparent sci-fi elements until now. Edgar's recent statement to Empire reveals the film will be apart of a sub-genre called social sci-fi. Some of the books included on Wiki are Brave New World, 1984 and The Time Machine. Wright is also directing fans to possible influences by naming authors John Christopher and John Wydnham, who were know for The Tripod novels and The Day Of The Triffids.

"Hard to say…It’s a sci-fi comedy. Social science-fiction. Look it up on Wikipedia and then bone up on John Christopher and John Wyndham."

Social science fiction is a term used to describe a subgenre of science fiction concerned less with technology and space opera and more with sociological speculation about human society. In other words, it “absorbs and discusses anthropology”, and speculates about human behavior and interactions.

John Chistopher's Tripod trilogy ended up a BBC series featuring invading aliens in the future. While John Wyndham's The Day of The Triffids (Sam Raimi is looking to remake it) focused on man-eating plants while the population goes blind after a meteor shower. It had a couple of films along with it's own short-lived BBC series in 1981. It seems like Wright plans to combine the books into his own story with aliens trying to bring about the end of humankind. Seemingly this is the most personal and inside of the three films as many would have had to grown up with these shows to even get the references. While Shaun of The Dead was a shout-out to George A. Romeo's "of The Dead" trilogy (Dead, Dawn, Day) with Hot Fuzz an homage to Lethal Weapon and cop actioners.

A key bridge between Shaun of The Dead (Shaun's mum's birthday flowers) and Hot Fuzz (Angel's Japanese Peace Lily) besides pubs has been flowers and references to gardening which could have been teasing World's End the entire time. The Triddids are flesh-eating plants and could come into play as gardening is a massive staple of British culture. Perhaps, the aliens are unknowingly planted in gardens during this epic pub crawl and slowly the town folk are either replaced with aliens (ala Invasion of The Body Snatchers) or become a new food source.

Writer Hired For Edgar Wright's 'NIGHT STALKER' Starring Johnny Depp

HeatVision reports Disney has hired D.V. DeVincentis (High Fidelity, Grosse Pointe Blank, Lay The Favorite) to adapt The Night Stalker for director Edgar Wright (Ant-Man, World's End, Shaun of The Dead). The horror comedy has Johnny Depp in the lead as a tabloid reporter who seemingly is always confronted with horrific creatures with his editor never believing him. After the low return numbers for Dark Shadows (another horror comedy based on a old television series) it will interesting to see how much energy and money Disney will be willing to pump into the project.

Could Both 'ANT-MAN' And 'WORLD'S END' Shoot In 2012?

Edgar Wright recently announced plans to shoot World's End this September with a possible release in Spring 2013. This lead to thoughts of the production for Ant-Man being yet again delayed. It was odd since rumblings from Kevin Feige gave the impression Ant-Man was going to be announced as the next Marvel film. Not to mention that Wright tweeted an Ant-Man painting days before World's End was revealed as his next film. Word from a recent chat with Edgar during an Empire podcast along with a quote from SlashFilm (in bold) gives the impression some footage and even full scenes for Ant-Man could also be shot this year. Speculation lead us to believe that Ant-Man could be that mystery film slated for May 2014 but that isn't for-sure just yet.

"Things are happening, and other things are happening on other things as well. There’s some interesting plates spinning and I ideally hope I’ll be shooting this year....So as not to jinx things, I am going to remain spectacularly vague on this. Let’s just say I hope to shoot some Antman and World’s End this year."

Nothing seems to be set in stone here but it sounds very promising. Perhaps this could be a sizzle-reel for Comic-Con 2013 or Comic-Con 2012 which would reveal the cast along with Edgar's vision for the film. Edgar also rightly tells fans to chill out about how long it's been taking considering it takes three years for each of his films to be made. It's understandable considering he's been hounded about Ant-Man for eight years by interviewers and fans-alike.

"I get quite superstitious because I don’t feel like anybody reading magazines and websites and stuff — quite understands how hard long it takes. Because the film websites update hourly, it’s like ‘What’s the fucking hold up? Just make it. Why isn’t it coming out tomorrow?’ But every film that I’ve made has taken like three years. Each one, it’s been three years between movies. I would love for that gap to be shorter, but the truth is there’s — it’s almost like a holding pattern. There are planes in the air and you have to figure out which one is going to land before they all crash like Die Hard 2."

Edgar Wright's 'WORLD'S END' Starring Simon Pegg And Nick Frost Could Shoot In September With Spring 2013 Release Date

Any thoughts of Ant-Man being released in 2013 have been scrapped as Deadline reports World's End is next for director Edgar Wright. The final film in the Wright/Pegg trilogy (Shaun of The Dead, Hot Fuzz, World's End) is expected to start production in September with a possible Spring 2013 release date. Universal/Working Title are currently working out the details with Wright. We also finally get the film's synopsis which doesn't exactly reveal if aliens are involved or not. At least we know that it will end up earning an R-rating along with Nick Frost in a supporting role.

"20 years after attempting an epic pub crawl, five childhood friends reunite when one of them becomes hell bent on trying the drinking marathon again. They are convinced to stage an encore by mate Gary King, a 40-year old man trapped at the cigarette end of his teens, who drags his reluctant pals to their home town and once again attempts to reach the fabled pub, The World’s End. As they attempt to reconcile the past and present, they realize the real struggle is for the future, not just theirs but humankind’s. Reaching The World’s End is the least of their worries."


This likely means that if Ant-Man does get the go-ahead it won't be going into production until Wright has completed all the press tours for World's End. Giving the impression that it might start shooting after Captain America 2 ends it's production during Summer 2013. It should be enough time to meet that May 2014 release date that hasn't been filled as Edgar is rather quick with post-production.

Edgar Wright And Simon Pegg Complete Second Draft Of 'WORLD'S END'

Simon Pegg has revealed via his Twitter page proof that he and Edgar Wright have completed a second draft of World's End. He added "I know we took our sweet time but as soon as I get back from outer space, we can finish this thing once and for all". It's really unknown if this will go first or Ant-Man. Marvel Studios is expected to finally announce the fate of Ant-Man in the coming weeks. There have been rumblings that Edgar has already begun pre-production on one of these two films. Details on third film in the Wright/Pegg trilogy (Shaun of The Dead, Hot Fuzz) are slim but since the color green is the theme of the film it's expected it could end up an alien invasion or Godzilla type monster movie.

Kevin Feige Hopeful Ant-Man Will Happen Soon

BleedingCool was able to speak with Marvel's Kevin Feige who calls the shots when to comes the Marvel Cinematic Universe at Marvel Studios. He gives another encouraging statement on Ant-Man which has Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim) attached to direct. The film is co-written by Joe Cornish (Attack The Block) and Wright, the pair previously worked together on the script for Tintin: The Secret of The Unicorn.

"It’s somewhere. I’ll just say it’s closer than it’s ever been in its long maybe eight year history, and I usually e-mail Edgar every two or three days and over those eight years its got further away and closer… we are now closer than we’ve ever been. So I hope it will come together shortly."

Wright's other projects could conflict with him directing Ant-Man as he's also lined up Baby Driver, World's End starring Nick Frost/Simon Pegg and Disney's The Night Stalker which stars Johnny Depp. I wouldn't be surprised to see Joe Cornish end up taking over directing duties on the superhero film.

Edgar Wright Will Direct Johnny Depp In Night Stalker

It looks like Edgar Wright's relationship with Marvel Studios has paid off. Deadline reports that Disney has tapped Edgar (Hott Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim) to direct Johnny Depp in a feature adaptation of The Night Stalker. It's based on the 70's horror comedy television film which spawned a TV series. It featured a reporter who covered crime for a tabloid and his cases always led to supernatural perpetrators that included zombies, vampires, werewolves and aliens. Of course, neither his editor nor anyone else would believe him or allow him to run what seemed like outrageous stories. It will be produced by Depp as another one of his passion projects similar to how he put together Dark Shadows.

Depp has a rather strong relationship with Disney as he is currently filming The Lone Ranger and has Pirates 5 in development at the studio. It's expected that Edgar will end up writing the film but he is busy with Ant-Man and recently with World's End with Simon Pegg. Night Stalker is the first post-Scott Pilgrim directing announcement for Wright. Even through he's been long attached to Ant-Man for Marvel Studios a production start or official announcement was never stated. Currently it's unknown when this project could go into production since their isn't a script in place.

Edgar Wright And Simon Pegg Tease World's End With Photo

Edgar Wright is currently one of the busiest young directors working today. He's passionate about his original films just as much as he is for his studio projects. A major amount of time is put into planning his productions which makes it even harder for ones that he hopes to both write and direct. Ant-Man is a perfect example it's been in development for the better part of a decade but still zero announcements on a production date. Studios have pursued him for projects like directing Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and writing The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of The Unicorn but still focuses on his own work.

Edgar today gave fans a big surprise as he tweeted of photo of himself and co-writer Simon Pegg in what I assume is a brainstorming session for World's End. This would be the third film in the Cornetto Trilogy the first two being Shaun of the Dead (Red) and Hot Fuzz (Blue). End would be the green flavour of the bunch. The color gives the impression that it could be either a giant monster movie in the vain of Godzilla or an alien invasion film similar to War of The Worlds. The two have been busy bees lately and it looks like they've finally made time to sit down and write the final film in their trilogy. I'm sure the duo will give confirmation on the film's actual synopsis within the coming months.

When this film will get made is another question that hasn't been answered. Edgar currently has three projects he could jump into directing next that include Ant-Man, Baby Driver and Them. From what I understand while Marvel loves Ant-Man it's not currently a priority with the studio. Instead Marvel is focusing on grinding out a ridiculous amount of sequels before introducing new heroes.

Nick Frost Says World's End Could Shoot In 2012

While fans of Shaun of The Dead (red) and Hot Fuzz (blue) have been wondering when World's End (green) the final chapter of the trilogy would be made. The film being mentioned as green themed which could means aliens or giant monsters (Godzilla inspired?). Nick Frost during the press tour for Tintin talked to ComingSoon and says that he's read a draft of the script and the movie could shoot as early as 2012.


"There is a draft out there, which I've read, and it's great, and I think our plan is to crack on and shoot next year. Touch wood. They move and they change but we definitely want to get on with it."

Nick Frost, Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright; the three gentlemen involved have been developing their own careers since the release of Hot Fuzz. Pegg jumping into the Mission Impossible and newly rebooted Star Trek franchises. Frost kicking up more quirky roles in The Boat That Rocks, Attack The Block and Snow White And The Huntsman. Edgar Wright also gathering steam as both a director and screenwriter with Scott Pilgrim, Tintin and the forever in development Ant-Man for Marvel Studios.

Could Joe Cornish Direct Ant-Man?

We've been hearing lots of updates concerning the script of Marvel Studios' Ant-Man which is being written by Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish. The pair previously worked together on Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of The Unicorn that's being produced by Peter Jackson. Last thing we heard is that the duo handed in a second draft which the studio seemed thrilled about. Now word from HitFix is that they're aren't finished the script leading us to believe that a third draft is currently being worked on. Joe also stated Edgar hasn't been announced as the official director and that he would leave all the announcements about the film to him [Wright]. Marvel Studios has neither announced a release date or even a director for the film.


I'm getting the feeling that Joe might be in a better position to direct Ant-Man than Edgar. Cornish is slowly gathering steam as a director with his cult film Attack The Block and unlike Wright doesn't have his plate full of projects. Marvel is notoriously cheap and would likely lock a director into a two picture deal. Something I feel could be too much for Wright who does as much producing as he does directing. Likely wanting the breathing room to make his passion projects such as Baby Driver, Them and World's End along with producing other things. Cornish was recently linked as a candidate to direct A Good Day To Die Hard the fifth film in the Die Hard franchise before John Moore was hired.