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Edgar, all of your films are very layered, so when writing them do you start with the character and story first or the pop culture, genre references?

EW: With this one, you have to know the fate of the characters. You have to know where you’re ending. We always knew what the end scene of this film was going to be and once you know the fate of the characters, then you can start to layer. For instance, Martin Freeman’s character, where he ends up is predicted in the first thing that’s said about his character. So in the first three minutes of the film, which are impossible to get on the first watch, there are a lot of omens of things to come as there are in the pub signs. You need to know where your characters are going and then go backwards to start threading things in. And we usually have been quite mathematical about it. If there is going to be a payoff to something, it has to be mentioned twice before. You can’t just have one and then three. You have to have, one, two, and then three is the payoff. And because we had a chart of 12 bars, we also had a chart where you’d have these leaping lines of where things come back in and out.

Gary’s character is told in the film that his problem is that he keeps going backwards, but he needs to go forward. If you could jump back to any character you’ve been to see where they have gone, who would it be?

NF: I think mine would be Mike Watt from Spaced to see if he did go to Afghanistan and if he survived. He wanted to be in the Army so much, “Did he ever do it?” Mike is based off of a friend of mine called John who we used to rag on a lot for saying he was in the Army when he was in the National Guard essentially. Like four years ago I saw him on Facebook and he had become a personal, protective guard to the Prime Minister. So through all his bullshit he eventually got there and that amazed me and I wondered if Mike would take that same route.

EW: I’d say going back, this is another movie I will never make like a Don’t [the fake trailer from Grindhouse] feature film, but I thought it would be funny to do a low-budget spin-off movie featuring the Andys from Hot Fuzz. Like a buddy film with Rafe Spall and Paddy Considine would be hilarious. I even had a title for it called Maximum Tash.

Edgar, a lot of your films, especially Scott Pilgrim, seem to find their audience once they are released on DVD a few years later. As a filmmaker, does it bother you that it didn’t do as well as it possibly could but then find its audience at the end?

EW: Here’s the thing. If you’re proud of a movie, which I am proud of, you just have to have faith that it will get out there eventually. And to be honest, that’s exactly what happened with Spaced. Spaced wasn’t a big ratings hit in the UK, but it found an audience on DVD and cable with endless repeats. So I think the thing is, and I know the cast feels the same way, because we did a DVD press tour; if nobody was proud of the movie, you wouldn’t have seen the cast. They would have all ran for the hills. But the fact that we went out and did more press for it was just like, “You know what, we’re proud of this.” Films are more complex. Mainstream audiences want to know exactly what they’re getting and if a film is more complicated, it’s just a harder job to market it. It’s as simple as that. I don’t feel bad about it, because I feel like people are still watching that movie in cinemas at midnight, while movies that have made $300 million leave the theaters and no one ever thinks about them again.

NF: I think it’s that thing we always talk about and I hate this word, because I heard it used so fucking much during the Olympics, but it’s about a legacy. If I was a studio head, my answer would be different, but do you want a film that makes a shitload of money or one that people will watch forever and care about?

EW: With this film as well, there are darker strokes in it. You can see a film that’s very funny and laugh all of the way through, but you have forgotten about it by the time I have validated my parking. It’s completely gone. But hopefully with things like this, by being very specific, you can resonate more over a longer period. One of the nice responses I have gotten with this movie is that people post about it a couple days later “this movie’s got me thinking” which is good beyond the laughs and action stuff. It’s better to be a sleeper than something that burns out.

To hit on a bit of Marvel news, Edgar, you have been working on Ant-Man for quite some time now. Ultron is now in The Avengers 2 so I wanted to know if he was ever in the Ant-Man script?

EW: I can not really get into that, but I’ll say “no.”

And Nick, how is the sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman coming along?

NF: It’s now Ultron and the Huntsman.

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