Simon Pegg has a Fantastic Fear of Everything

Simon Pegg might have struggled to make the most of his talents when separated from his partners-in-comedy Nick Frost and Edgar Wright – and even with Frost, Paul wasn’t up to much – but after much teasing on his Twitter account, it has been announced that Pegg will be taking the lead in low-budget English ‘psycho-comedy’ A Fantastic Fear of Everything. The movie will see Pegg playing a crime novelist who slowly goes mad whilst researching Victorian murderers, and the possibility of his book being picked up by Hollywood, along with his irrational fear of laundromats, sends him spiralling into delusion and paranoia.

If there is any comedy to be found, it sounds as though it’ll be of the pitch-black variety. Burke & Hare was a big disappointment last time Pegg tried to move to the darker side of the genre, but he describes this new part to Slate as “more of an acting role” and “an odd but brilliant script”, so fingers crossed. We’re all waiting on the final entry in the Three Colours Cornetto trilogy, of course, but this could fill in the gap very nicely if it lives up to its potential and it’s always encouraging to see a big name like Pegg supporting low-budget native productions. The movie will be directed by Chris Hopewell and Crispian Mills, the latter of whom is the son of cinematic heavyweights John and Hayley Mills.