Edgar Wright

Raised in England on a steady diet of comic books, video games, and genre films, writer/director Edgar Wright began developing his own devoted fanbase at a relatively early age. Before his 25th birthday, Wright had already helmed a number of British TV series, most notably the dark comedy Asylum, which found him working with future key collaborators Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes née Stevenson, and Mash and Peas, a project featuring David Walliams and Matt Lucas, both later of Little Britain. In 1999, Wright reunited with Pegg and Stevenson and recruited Nick Frost for Spaced, a clever and playful series about unmotivated, though highly imaginative, London flatmates. Wright fully indulged in his geeky film obsessions on Spaced, not only referencing numerous action, sci-fi, and horror movies, but also giving the sitcom a distinctly cinematic look. A zombie-themed episode of Spaced served as a springboard for Wright's feature film Shaun of the Dead, starring Pegg and Frost, with the movie becoming a considerable international hit. Working again with Pegg and Frost, Wright followed with the similarly well-received Hot Fuzz, a lively riff on buddy-cop movies, and then began a number of Hollywood projects, including Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, with his cheekiness and imagination happily intact.