While researching America's top UFO hotspots for their new science-fiction comedy “Paul,” two Arizona cities popped up on Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's radar: Apache Junction and Camp Verde.
So, naturally, the writers/actors worked the cities into “Paul's” screenplay, having their characters plan to visit them on a pilgrimage through the country's most significant extraterrestrial sites. Unfortunately for the Valley, said characters never quite make it to either city as they are forced to take a detour that is vital to the film's plot.
In “Paul,” Pegg and Frost play a pair of sci-fi geeks who meet an extraterrestrial, voiced by Seth Rogen, and, together with a kidnapped Christian played by Kristen Wigg, agree to help him flee from those who want him captured, including a government agent played by Jason Bateman.
However, Phoenicians feat not as Pegg and Frost had plenty of time to bandy about ideas for the movie's sequel while visiting the Valley as part of “Paul's” promotional press tour and Arizona made quite the impression on them.
“I think the deserts around Sedona could easily double for an alien planet,” says Frost, noting that he and Pegg drove across America to help prepare them to pen “Paul's” screenplay. “Watching America drift by and watching it change geographically and evolve along the route... that was what we needed.”
Pegg echos Frost's thoughts, adding that the two Brits were already well-read with respect to the genre so, rather than re-watching their favorite science-fiction flicks, they made learning about America a top priority. And “Paul” marks the first motion picture that Pegg and Frost believe warrants a sequel that would not be completely based on financial motivations.
“'Shaun of the Dead' was a story that ended,” Pegg explains. “'Hot Fuzz' was a story about how two guys become hot fuzz and to see them being hot fuzz would be less funny, I think. With 'Paul,' I think there could possibly be a sequel there.”
And a sequel may not be such a hard-sell, either, given the fact that movies about aliens are relatively popular at the moment. Last weekend saw the debut of two entries in the genre, the action-packed invasion thriller “Battle: Los Angeles” and the animated family flick “Mars Needs Moms” in which a young boy's mother is abducted.
“Aren't we the nicest alien at the moment?” asks Frost, noting that a recent jump in technology since the last batch of extraterrestrial themed motion pictures has allowed filmmakers to properly handle creatures like the pawns in “District 9.” “Every other one wants to come and eat our juices.”
Frost attests that said jump in technology permitted visual effects company Double Negative to make the computer-generated alien featured in “Paul” look relatively “unspectacular” in a “bleached-out desert location” as opposed to a “very rich, technicolor background.”
“It makes it more real,” Pegg chimes in. “If you have this character as sophisticated as Paul and put him in a gas station in Wyoming, and with the cameras slightly hand-held, he feels so much more real just by his context. It's all well and good seeing Gollum in Middle Earth, because that is where he belongs. But what if he were in Flagstaff? That would look really freaky.”
Frost agrees, adding that filmmakers have traditionally tried to get their money's worth out of expensive computer-generated characters by always having them do something. He uses “Star Wars” staple Jar Jar Binks as an example of this philosophy.
“What we wanted was a real character that does nothing at all,” Frost continues. “You might have a tiny move or a scratch or nothing. The more we get used to the fact that there is a lot of CGI and we can use this technology, the more you get naturalistic performances from it.”
Pegg will appear on the big screen again in December, reprising his Benji Dunn character alongside Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt in “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.” Frost will pop up a bit sooner than that in “Attack the Block,” an action flick about a teen gang in South London defending their block from an alien invasion.
Also in December, Pegg and Frost will also lend their voices to a pair of bumbling detectives in “The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn,” Steven Spielberg's motion-capture animated film based on the series of comic books by the same name.
As for their next joint cinematic venture with “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” director Edgar Wright, Pegg makes it a point to say that he and Frost are not simply crossing off ideas on a list of genres. Instead, he says they make movies that they would want to watch themselves.
“We're not the genre guys,” Pegg explains. “We don't want to be the genre guys because that would be awfully boring when we started to get to Russian drama or French ballet. The next film I make with Edgar that we're starting to write now will be about people and experience and whatever universe that takes place in. But we always stick to the stuff we like.
“Mel Brooks made great films about the things he liked, like Universal horror movies, musicals and Alfred Hitchcock films and westerns. The minute he started making films about science-fiction, operas and Robin Hood, everything just went to shit because the love wasn't there. So we have got to keep the love around here.”
Frost, on the other hand, knows what genre he would like to tackle next.
“BMX's,” he jokes.
“Paul” (R – 104 minutes) opens Friday at movie theaters throughout the Valley. Visit NCM.com for specific showtimes and locations.
Listen to Joseph J. Airdo's movie review segment every Friday morning during “The Daily Blender with Jeffry O'Brien,” 6-9 a.m. weekdays on NBC 1260 AM and 96.1 FM.
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