Update On Pegg And Frost’s Alien Comedy ‘Paul’

Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are set to star in a road-trip comedy that they’ve written, which will be helmed by Superbad director Greg Motolla.

So what’s so special about that?

Well, the twist to this fairly generic plot outline is that after going to Comic-Con, Pegg and Frost’s British slackers head (for whatever reason) to Area 51 and come across an alien called Paul, who enlists them to help him find his way home.

Wow, that’s an original story hook, don’t you think?

The details about the project have been kept very hush-hush , specifically how the titled alien will look on-screen, but I don’t think they can hide the fact that the little fella’ is going to have to be in CGI form.

And it’s just that very aspect that Motolla has been spilling some very welcome beans about in a Sundance podcast where he talked about the difficulty of getting the CGI portrayal just right:

“That movie is a far more technically challenging movie than Adventureland was because one of the main characters is a fully non-existent creature. He’s basically an alien who may be, let’s say, 70% CGI and the big challenge is that he needs to be a very funny, comedic method actor.  It’s not the kind of CGI character where we people to say ‘Oh wow, look what they did, that’s so cool’ it’s actually the kind of CGI character where we want people to just treat like another actor in the film, and he should be fully believable and multi-faceted and has to give a great performance, he just doesn’t exist. We’ve been doing a lot of test trying to figure out how to pull that one off.”

It’s great to hear that Mottola, Pegg and Frost are aiming for a more character-driven movie instead of just having a cute CGI creature that provides cheap giggles and is nice to look at. It looks like they’re placing strong importance on the fact that Paul must be a believable, fully-fleshed character who is just as funny and likeable as Pegg and Frost will undoubtedly be. I personally can’t wait to see how this turns out.

Oh, and if you’re reading this wondering if the film will have the comedic freedom it deserves you can breathe easy – Paul will indeed be an R-rated movie. Motolla stated:

“It’s rare that an R-rated comedy would have a CGI Creature right at the center of it so I’m learning quite a bit.”

So does the combination of Pegg and Frost writing the script, Motolla directing and, of course, one of the characters being a CGI alien named Paul have you looking forward to this? Or do you think it sounds like a neat concept that won’t translate well to the big screen?

Source: /Film