Nostalgia makes the world go round. In recent years, the media landscape is all about reboots, remakes, and sequels that can mitigate risk while amassing maximum profit. But with big budget projects like Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny and The Little Mermaid floundering at the box office, perhaps these once safe bets are now more risky than initially thought.
Even those who crave the safety of familiar worlds and characters are in search of new ideas, or lack the patience to keep up with ever-evolving universes that ask us to keep up with several films and shows a year. Above all this though, we’re still occasionally desperate for a classic to return for another glorious round.
Shaun of the Dead is one such film, and will forever remain among my firm favourites. Edgar Wright’s debut emerged in 2004 hot off the heels of Spaced with real life friends Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in the lead roles. Not only did it help revitalise the zombie genre with the help of similar greats like 28 Days Later, it was a bold, ingenious horror comedy that has become one of the most quotable films of all time. Hot Fuzz and
The World’s End came in its wake, completing The Cornetto Trilogy and solidifying the creative partnership in cinematic history. By some miracle, it hasn’t been dredged up for more juicy content.
Speaking with The Guardian about his life and career, Simon Pegg recently touched on the constant barrage of requests for Shaun of the Dead 2 and how this obsession with sequels and continuations is a huge negative for popular culture as a whole. He isn't the nerd he used to be apparently, and that brings with it a newfound sense of maturity towards the media we consume or should be creating.
“If I ever do an Instagram Live or whatever, people are always like, ‘I need Shaun of the Dead 2 in my life,’ ” he revealed. “And I’m like, ‘No, you don’t f**king need Shaun of the Dead 2! The last thing you need is Shaun of the Dead 2! It’s done. Move on!”
He’s so right it hurts. This sort of admission is refreshing for an actor who is established in big franchises like Mission: Impossible, Star Trek, The Boys, and several others. While he clearly isn’t against blockbuster sequels and properties with no end in sight, he has enough willpower to act in defiance of a sequel that would do so much more harm than good. Pegg seems aware of the damaging nature of sequels that answer questions that nobody asked in the first place, and how some films are more valuable when they are self-contained in their characters and narrative instead of keeping us dangling by a thread for eternity.
Bringing everyone back for a Shaun of the Dead sequel would cheapen all the original sets out to achieve. Shaun gets back with Liz and learns to be less of a selfish asshole, Ed is a zombie living in the shed locked in an eternal deathmatch with TimeSplitters 2, while everyone else on the cast is either dead or doomed to an eternal plot hole. Bringing it back in any capacity would require silly questions to be asked or characters to be aged up to fit whatever story it tells. Britain has also changed drastically in the past two decades, and thus whatever social commentary a potential sequel explored would immediately alienate it from the original. No matter how you slice things, it feels unnecessary.
The film is a cultural touchstone for millions around the world, so I understand the desire to revisit these characters or see them go on more adventures, but it’s their mundane existence in the face of extraordinary circumstances that made it so memorable in the first place. You remove that appeal with a sequel, and risk comparing it to the original in ways that are neither fair nor necessary. Pegg said he would much rather team up with Frost and Wright in a new project as opposed to a continuation, and who can blame him? The Cornetto Trilogy shares creative teams and comedy stylings, but each film is so strikingly different and shines as a consequence. To suddenly stifle that ambition in favour of a sequel seems like a bit of a lost cause. It’s okay to let masterpieces like Shaun of the Dead thrive on their own merits.