Edgar Howard Wright (born 18 April 1974) is an English filmmaker. He is known for his fast-paced and kinetic, satirical genre films, which feature extensive utilisation of expressive popular music, Steadicamtracking shots, dolly zooms and a signature editing style that includes transitions, whip pans and wipes.[1] He first made independent short films before making his first feature film A Fistful of Fingers in 1995. Wright created and directed the comedy series Asylum in 1996, written with David Walliams. After directing several other television shows, Wright directed the sitcom Spaced (1999–2001), which aired for two series and starred frequent collaborators Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
Edgar Howard Wright was born on 18 April 1974 in Poole, Dorset and grew up predominantly in Wells in Somerset. He has an older brother, Oscar, who is an artist.[3][4] He attended The Blue School, Wells from 1985 to 1992, and is honoured by a plaque at the school. His school drama teacher, Peter Wild, later played a cameo role in Hot Fuzz.[5]
Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, he directed many short films, first on a Super-8 camera that was a gift from a family member and later on a Video-8 camcorder that he won in a competition on the television-programme Going Live. These films were mostly comedic pastiches of popular genres, such as the super hero-inspired Carbolic Soap and Dirty Harry tribute Dead Right (which was featured on the DVD release of Hot Fuzz).[citation needed]
From 1992 to 1994, Wright attended the Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design (now Arts University Bournemouth) and received an ND in Audio-Visual Design.[6]
In June 2018, Arts University Bournemouth awarded Wright an Honorary Fellowship. On receiving the award Wright said that he still thought very fondly of his time there.[7]
I've always been fascinated by horror films and genre films. And horror films harboured a fascination for me and always have been something I've wanted to watch and wanted to make. Equally, I'm very fascinated by comedy. I suppose the reason that this film changed my life is that very early on in my film-watching experiences, I saw a film that was so sophisticated in its tone and what it managed to achieve.[10]
In 1998 writer/actors Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes were in the early stages of developing their sitcom Spaced for Channel 4 and thought of asking Wright to direct, having fondly remembered working with him on the 1996 Paramount comedy Asylum. Wright gave Spaced an unusual look for the sitcom genre, with dramatic camera angles and movement borrowed from the visual language of science fiction and horror films.[11] Instead of shying away from these influences Wright makes an active effort to show his referencing, adding a 'Homage-O-Meter' to all of his releases, a device that displays each directorial nod he has made during shooting. In 2002, he made appearances as a scientist and a technician named Eddie Yorque during both series of Look Around You, a BBC-programme created by a member of the Spaced cast, Peter Serafinowicz. He also made two brief appearances in Spaced, one in which he can be seen, along with other crew members on the series, lying asleep in Daisy Steiner's squat as she prepares to leave for her new house. The other is a brief appearance during the montage in the episode "Gone" where Daisy describes to Tim what she thinks would be a fun night out for the two. Edgar is sitting on the tube (with a beard) next to Tim and Daisy.
2003–2013: The Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy and Scott Pilgrim vs The World
Wright in 2013
The critical success of Spaced paved the way for Wright and Pegg to move to the big screen with Shaun of the Dead, a zombie comedy which mixed a "Brit flick" romantic comedy style with homages to the horror classics of George A. Romero and Sam Raimi. The film was a success critically and financially, and its rooting in American genre cinema helped to make it an international hit.
The pair planned a trilogy of British genre comedies which were connected not by narrative but by their shared traits and motifs. The trilogy was named "The Three-Flavours-Cornetto-Trilogy" by the pair due to a running joke about the British ice cream product Cornetto and its effectiveness as a hangover cure. Wright explained to Clark Collis in an interview for Entertainment Weekly, "We put that joke in Shaun of the Dead where Nick asks for a Cornetto first thing in the morning. When I was at college, it was my hangover cure—probably still is my hangover cure. Then we put it into Hot Fuzz because we thought it would be a funny recurring thing. One journalist in the United Kingdom said, 'Is this going to be your theme as a trilogy?' and I said, 'Yes, it's like Krzysztof Kieślowski's Three Colours trilogy. This is the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy.' It was just a joke that stuck." Collis observes that the films also feature "a running gag involving garden fences."[12]
The second instalment was the comedy action thriller Hot Fuzz. Production started in March 2006 and the film was released in February 2007 in the United Kingdom and April 2007 in the United States. It revolves around Pegg's character, Nicholas Angel, a police officer who is transferred from London to rural Sandford, where grisly events soon take place. In 2007, Wright also directed a fake trailer insert for Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse, called "Don't".[13] It was a plotless trailer that mocked horror clichés, with lines such as, "If you... are thinking... of going ... into... this... house... DON'T!".
Edgar Wright at The World's End Premiere, Leicester Square, 2013
In 2010, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was released; its over-$85 million budget[14] dwarfed the £8 million budget[15] of Hot Fuzz. The film, based on the graphic novel series Scott Pilgrim, was co-written, co-produced and directed by Wright. It took in roughly half its budget in box office,[16] in spite of its critical reception and praise from fellow directors such as Kevin Smith, Quentin Tarantino and Jason Reitman.[14] In November 2011, The Adventures of Tintin, directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by Peter Jackson, and based on Hergé's The Adventures of Tintin was released. Wright co-wrote the film with writing partner Joe Cornish and Steven Moffat. The film also co-starred Wright's frequent collaborators Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. The third instalment of the Cornetto trilogy, The World's End, premiered in London on 10 July 2013. The film is about several friends who reunite when one decides to repeat a pub crawl they did 20 years earlier. They have to get to The World's End pub without ending up in the gutter to do this, but some unusual powers are at work and what happens to them may determine what happens to humans as a species.[17]
2014–2017: Ant-Man and Baby Driver
Wright had been developing a live-action film based on the Marvel Comics superhero Ant-Man with Joe Cornish since 2006.[18] However, on 23 May 2014, Wright and Marvel Studios issued a joint statement announcing that Wright would exit the movie due to creative differences.[19] According to Wright, he had been hired as writer-director but became unhappy when Marvel wanted to write a new script. In 2017, he said: "The most diplomatic answer is I wanted to make a Marvel movie but I don't think they really wanted to make an Edgar Wright movie ... having written all my other movies, that's a tough thing to move forward. Suddenly becoming a director for hire on it, you’re sort of less emotionally invested and you start to wonder why you’re there, really."[20] He was replaced by Peyton Reed as director, with Adam McKay and star Paul Rudd rewriting the screenplay. He and Cornish received both screenplay and story credits, with Wright also credited as executive producer.[21]
2018–present: The Sparks Brothers and Last Night in Soho
In June 2018, Edgar announced he would be making a documentary on the cult pop rock band Sparks.[27] He had covered the band's concert in London in May at the O2 Forum Kentish Town. This concert would be included in the documentary.[28][29] The film had its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival on 30 January 2021[30] and was theatrically released in North America on 18 June 2021, by Focus Features.[31]
In 2020 it was announced that Wright had formed a production company with his longtime collaborators Nira Park, Joe Cornish and Rachel Prior, Complete Fiction. That same day, it was reported that the production company had signed a deal with Netflix to tackle adaptations of Lockwood & Co., The Murders of Molly Southbourne, and The City of Brass. The production company is also set to produce another Netflix original series, albeit one that is under wraps and has several feature films in development with Working Title Films.[40]
In April 2022 Wright was appointed to the British Film Institute's Board of Governors for a four-year term, saying he was "excited to see what I can do to help promote their incredible efforts in curating, preserving, producing and educating".[41] In 2023, Wright announced via Twitter that Scott Pilgrim would be returning as an anime adaptation[42] with the film's original actors as the voice cast. Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was released on 17 November 2023 for Netflix, with Wright as an executive producer.[43]
In December 2007, Wright began guest programming at Repertory theatre the New Beverly Cinema following a sold-out screening of his films. He curated a two-week series of his favourite films dubbed "The Wright Stuff", hosting interviews with filmmakers and performers for each screening. The festival concluded with a double-bill of Evil Dead II and Raising Arizona.[50] Wright returned for additional "The Wright Stuff" events in January 2011[51] and December 2011, the third series consisting of films that had been recommended to Wright by friends Bill Hader, Daniel Waters, Quentin Tarantino, Judd Apatow, Joss Whedon, John Landis and Joe Dante, but that he had never seen. Wright's attempt to narrow the list based on public comment from visitors to his blog "produced another thousand suggestions."[52] In August 2013, Wright programmed an additional double-feature series at the theater, "The World's End is Nigh", consisting of 12 movies that he called "stepping stones to our new movie" The World's End.[53]
Wright has made cameos in every film by his friend Garth Jennings. Jennings made cameos in Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World's End.[45]
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