DreadCentral picked up an exclusive at the recent “Monster-Mania Convention” (I bet they talk about actuarial life tables there). John Landis will be producing a movie based on the West Port murders, and Simon Pegg is on board to star. In 1827 in Edinburgh, Scotland, William Burke and William Hare stole the corpse of someone who owed Hare £4 and sold it to a medical school for dissection. They made a little over £7. If my calculations are correct, that’s either around $800 in inflation-adjusted U.S. dollars, or it’s $giraffe.
Recognizing this as a profitable home business, Burke and Hare began killing people in order to sell their bodies, most fetching £8 to £10. Man, those were the good old days. Not like now, when you’ve got to pay the big bucks to maintain a crawlspace filled with quicklime.
~ robopanda
I wasn’t shy about loving Adventureland, not that anyone paid attention to me judging by its $16 million gross in eight weeks. Nonetheless, it was a moderate success given its sub-$10 million budget, and Director Greg Mottola’s follow up sounds… uh… even awesomer.
Seth Rogen, Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader and Jane Lynch have joined the cast of “Paul.” The road trip laffer [die in a fire. -ed.] also stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
Pegg and Frost, who wrote the script, will play two science-fiction fanatics on a road trip whose conspiracy dreams come true when they trek to Area 51 and encounter the title character, an escaped alien. Rogen will provide the voice of the alien. [Variety]
Anyone else thinking what I’m thinking? That they should shoot this as an homage to Mac & Me? Hey, bros, I just flew 1500 light-years from Xylon 4, and boy am I thirsty! Now who wants to party? *air guitar* ….So just me then? Carry on.
This is the latest clip from JJ Abrams’ Star Trek, aptly titled “Answer Me.” In this one we get to see plastic condom mannequin with eyebrows Zachary Quinto play Spock, as well as hints at the origin of Scotty (played by Simon Pegg). Apparently, Scotty just wandered in one night when it was raining and they decided screw it, you can be the ship’s engineer. It’s funny because isn’t that just like a Scotsman lol!
Fun fact: Chris Pine was drawn to acting in junior high after he quit basketball. His coach was always riding the Pine.
[via ropeofsilicon]
Simon Pegg and How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (trailer) director Robert Weide have taken to the nets, urging fans not to buy the DVD. The situation is sort of complicated (full rundown here), but the gist is that Weide and Pegg worked hard on extra material for the UK release and then got screwed when despite their best efforts, none of made it to the US release.
Weide goes into great detail about what he wanted and what they actually got and why an interview, a snippet of which I’ll include after the jump. But bottom line, he and Pegg say you shouldn’t buy the DVD. That’s cute you were thinking of us, guys, but honestly, you had me at “starring Kirsten Dunst.” Anyway, I think It’s clear why the movie failed: not enough animals on the poster. No bears riding horses? That’s just lazy.
AICN today is claiming confirmation on rumors that Simon Pegg and Nick Frost would play the Thompson Twins in Steven Spielberg/Peter Jackson’s Tintin movies. A TimesOnline article would seem to corroborate. 
…Pegg trots over to the motion-capture set for the ET director’s latest project - the first in a trilogy of Tintin movies. [Spielberg to direct the first, Peter Jackson the second] “Steven’s smoking a stogy, cap on head, like he’s always been since I was a baby [?],” Pegg says, shaking his head in wonder. “I shook his hand and chatted about films. He gave me the motion-capture camera, and I had a play around with it. Then he said, ‘Hey, maybe you and Nick Frost could play the Thompson Twins.’ In Tintin. A Spielberg movie. To work with him is beyond .. . ” He trails off, lost for words.
I don’t know much about Tintin other than that it’s a Belgian cartoon from like a billion years ago that’s been made into a couple different TV series and everyone seems to care about it. You might also wonder how Ginger Pegg and Fatty Frost will play twins. The answer is that the film will be motion capture, so they’ll be sort of animated. Also, the Thompson Twins weren’t twins either. In fact, there were three of them. In conclusion, the 80s were stupid.
