In our spoiler-filled The World's End **special spoiler podcast - which contains spoilers for The World's End, so be warned! - Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost spill several super-sized beans about the final chapter in the Three Cornettos Trilogy. Here is one of the most sizeable titbits spilled, namely the idea that** The World's End **was almost a kinda-sort-of sequel to Shaun Of The Dead at one point.
Take it away, Edgar Wright:
"This is going way way back, but there was at one point a really silly idea – one of those fanciful, pie in the sky ideas that we were excited about for about an afternoon and then thought, ‘That’s impossible…’ – where we thought of doing a sequel for Shaun Of The Dead where it would be an alternate reality. Shaun would turn left instead of right and instead of it being a zombie film, it would be – I don’t know – a bodysnatchers film.
"And it’s funny, because we talked about it very excitedly for about an afternoon and then thought it would be impossible because we’d have to do it right now, or the actors are going to look older and it’ll all look weird.
"But one of the gems that came away from that was something nice about paranoid sci-fi, of the John Wyndam, John Christopher-like ilk, where the threat is intelligent and can talk and is claiming identities. It ties really nicely into the idea of reunion and whether these characters have changed. You’ve got four guys who’ve become grown-ups, you’ve got Gary King who’s pretending to be a teenager and then you’ve got this town that’s this weird facsimile of what they once knew, and so that always tied in to the sci-fi theme."
Though a sequel to Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz or The World's End is never going to happen in this or any other alternate reality, it's fascinating to imagine what might have been if the gang had pulled this one off. Would there have been a 'You've got blue on you' line? Probably... not.
**The World's End **remains in cinemas, both in the UK and the US, and you should watch it again just so you can pick up the extra Easter Eggs you'll discover in our World's End** spoiler podcast.