Two tweets over the weekend from Simon Pegg confirm and elucidate progress on Greg Mottola’s “Paul,” an adventure buddy comedy set in the desert of New Mexico, where a couple of Comic Con dorks (Pegg and cohort Nick Frost), come across an alien named Paul (A CGI-live action hybrid voiced by Seth Rogen).
Penned by Frost and Pegg, it’s a very funny, enjoyable script and plays out with the energy, enthusiasm and joviality of say, “Back To The Future” meets “Close Encounters of The Third Kind.” The film has an outrageously good cast too, including Kirsten Wiig, Jason Bateman, Bill Hader, Sigourney Weaver, Blythe Danner, Jane Lynch, Jeffrey Tambor, and great comedy character actors like Joe Lo Truglio (“Superbad”), John Carroll Lynch (“Fargo”) and David Koechner (Champ Kind, from “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy”)
In tweet one, Pegg writes “Due to an extensive post production schedule you won’t be seeing our little desert caper any time soon. Rest assured it will be worth it.” Also rest assured that this isn’t a “Where The Wild Things Are” type of delay, where Spike Jonze essentially had to overhaul much of his approach to the special effects work. From what we hear, the live action/CGI hybrid post-production work is complicated and in order to give the filmmakers time to get it right, a source close to the film tells us “Paul” will now hit theaters in 2011, which basically jives with what Pegg is hinting at anyhow. And we point this out because earlier, we and others assumed the film might hit this year.
But that’s not all, in tweet two, Pegg writes: “Delighted to report that our venerable composer, @DavidGArnold saw the pre-fx cut of Paul yesterday and approved. His score will ROCK!!!” And who is David Arnold you ask? He has a history working with Pegg & Frost, having penned the score to “Hot Fuzz” as well as the Edgar Wright directed “Grindhouse” short “Don’t.” He also scored the Pegg starring comedy “How To Lose Friends & Alienate People,” but most notably, he worked on the last two Bond films, “Quantum Of Solace” and “Casino Royale.” He has a well rounded filmography, and already knows the comic sensibility these guys work with, so undoubtedly his work will be a great fit.
There’s no word yet on when in 2011 we might see this, but we’ve heard that Comic Con attendees this year are going to get their fill of Wright, Frost & Pegg as both “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” and “Paul” will very likely get sneak peeks at the convention. Though in the case of the latter, don’t expect anything with finished fx work, but perhaps some early scenes of the film before the duo have their alien encounter? We’ll have to wait and see.