50 Fun Facts About Shaun of the Dead

Who directed Shaun of the Dead?

It was his first mainstream feature; his actual debut was the 1995 no-budget western spoof A Fistful of Fingers.

Wright co-wrote the screenplay with which actor, who also plays the title role?

The two had already made the sitcom Spaced together, and the whole script came together in a matter of weeks.

Which cast member made his film debut in Shaun of the Dead?

He met Pegg while working as a waiter and was brought onto Spaced with no acting experience at all.

According to the film, how old is Shaun?

The film's whole engine is his quarter-life rut: a stalled sales job, a stepfather he resents and a girlfriend who has just left him.

What is the name of Shaun and Ed's favourite pub?

The pub habit came straight from real life: Pegg and Frost kept going to the same bar, and Wright had been trying to talk them out of it.

Kate Ashfield plays which character?

Kate Winslet was approached for the part first and met with Wright and Pegg before turning it down.

Bill Nighy plays Philip. What is Philip's relationship to Shaun?

Nighy signed on after Wright sent him an early script; Roger Ebert singled out his response to being bitten as the film's most endearing beat.

Who plays Shaun's mother, Barbara?

She was cast on the strength of her work in the 1980s sitcom Ever Decreasing Circles.

Dylan Moran plays David. Who is David in relation to the other characters?

David spends the film sniping at Shaun and, as Dianne finally admits, is quietly in love with Liz.

Which actress from The Office plays Dianne?

The cast was stacked with faces from Spaced, Black Books and The Office.

Jessica Stevenson, Pegg's Spaced co-creator, plays which character?

Her group of survivors is a mirror image of Shaun's, with each member a doppelganger of someone in the other party.

The film grew out of an episode of the sitcom Spaced. What was that episode called?

In it, Pegg's character Tim hallucinates a zombie invasion after a night on amphetamine and Resident Evil 2.

Roughly how long did Wright and Pegg take to write the screenplay?

The cast then met for read-throughs three weeks before shooting and tweaked the script further.

Only two scenes in the film were improvised. One is Ed describing the pub regulars; what is the other?

Pegg said the script's tightly repeating lines and actions made improvisation harder than usual.

At which London studio was the film partly shot?

The shoot ran nine weeks in the summer of 2003, split between the studio and location work in North London.

The film is set in which North London neighbourhood?

Other exteriors were shot in Highgate, Finsbury Park and East Finchley, and Shaun's electrical shop is a real shop in North Finchley.

Which real pub stood in for the film's pub?

The three-storey Victorian pub was in South London, nowhere near the film's North London setting; it closed and became flats in 2008.

Which Queen song plays from the jukebox while the survivors beat the pub landlord with pool cues?

Billboard credits the scene with reviving the song for a new generation; the fight was choreographed to it before the rights had even been cleared.

Whom did the Shaun of the Dead filmmakers beg for permission to use the Queen track in the pub fight?

Wright's pitch to himself was to play one of the happiest songs ever written over a scene of extreme violence.

Which artist told Wright they could 'trash Diamond Life without hesitation' in the record-throwing scene?

Wright later put one of her songs into Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and joked that he owed her some publishing money for the album he destroyed.

In the garden, Ed's first throw shatters an 'original pressing' of which record?

New Order was one of only two artists who allowed their cover art to be shown in the scene.

Ed offers Shaun a run of records to throw. Which one does Shaun approve with 'Throw it'?

Both Prince albums are refused outright, and the Batman soundtrack gets the same green light.

The choreographed shop-walk sequence near the start was scored to 'The Blue Wrath' by which act?

The scene had been written to a Cornelius track, but the replacement had the same tempo so the choreography still fit.

The Pete Woodhead and Daniel Mudford score is a pastiche of zombie soundtracks from which country?

It even reuses De Wolfe library cues that Romero had lifted for the original Dawn of the Dead.

Which flavour of Cornetto appears in the film, kicking off the trilogy's running joke?

The red wrapper nods to the gore; the ice cream is Ed's hangover cure because it is Wright's real one.

Which two films complete the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy?

Each film's ice cream carries a colour code: original blue for the police in Hot Fuzz, mint green for the 'little green men' of The World's End.

The 'Cornetto trilogy' label began as a joke during the promotion of which film?

Wright quipped that the films were his answer to Kieslowski's Three Colours trilogy, and the name stuck.

Impressed by the film, George A. Romero invited Pegg and Wright to cameo in which of his movies?

Both insisted on playing zombies rather than the more visible parts they were first offered.

In their Romero cameo, what kind of undead do Pegg and Wright play?

Tom Savini is in the same film, reprising his machete-wielding biker Blades from Dawn of the Dead, now undead.

How did Romero first watch Shaun of the Dead?

Wright had phoned to ask what he thought; Romero rang back with his approval and the cameo offer followed.

Roughly what was the film's production budget?

It went on to gross about $38.7 million worldwide, including brief re-releases in 2020 and 2022.

The UK distributor agreed to take the film on one condition tied to another zombie movie. What was it?

Zack Snyder's remake was Universal's own release that spring, so the studio staggered the two.

What stunt did UIP pull around London shortly before the UK release?

Underground posters were also placed so that Shaun's zombie-packed carriage seemed to sit on the tracks as commuters walked past.

How many BAFTA nominations did the film receive?

They were Outstanding British Film, a debut nod for producer Nira Park, and the BAFTA Interactive Award; it won none of them.

Which horror novelist called the film 'a 10 on the fun meter and destined to be a cult classic'?

Quentin Tarantino, for his part, listed it among his twenty favourite films made since 1992.

Which event Edgar Wright missed by ignoring the news for a fortnight inspired Shaun of the Dead?

He turned on his TV one day to footage of cattle being burnt and had no idea why, which became Shaun channel-hopping past the apocalypse.

With what does Shaun impale a zombie while defending his mother in a back garden?

The film's weapons of choice, from vinyl to garden games, are its running joke on the firearms Americans would reach for.

In the film's final scene, where is the zombified Ed being kept?

Six months on, surviving zombies are being used for free unskilled labour and daytime TV entertainment.

In the final version of the plan, what does Shaun propose they have at the pub while it all blows over?

The earlier drafts of the plan ended at Liz's place with a cup of tea, until Ed pointed out he wanted somewhere he was allowed to smoke.

Why does Shaun tell Ed not to say the 'z' word?

Ed asks anyway; Shaun peers through the letterbox, sees an empty street, then turns his head to find the horde.

Which four-word observation do various characters keep making to Shaun throughout the film?

The line lands on him from the first morning, long before he clocks that any of the red is blood.

Which was the film's tagline?

Wikiquote also records the film's own coinage for its genre: the rom-zom-com.

In which British magazine did Pegg and Wright's tie-in comic strip about the first zombie run?

The strip 'There's Something About Mary' was drawn by Oscar Wright, the director's brother.

In March 2020, Pegg and Frost reprised Shaun and Ed for a public service video with what title?

Shaun urges Ed to follow NHS guidance, stay home and avoid the pub.

A poster for which never-made sequel appears in Times Square in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse?

Co-director Rodney Rothman asked Wright for a film he might theoretically have made in that universe.

In which year did the film finally get a theatrical release in Japan, where it had long been a cult hit?

The Hakone Museum even displays a zombie-hand sculpture in tribute.

How were most of the zombie extras recruited?

Local children saw the makeup and wanted in, so around fifty child zombies were added to the 150-plus adults.

In 2013 researchers Witkowski and Blais used the film's zombie outbreak as an example for modelling what?

Their Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo model also drew on Romero's original Dead trilogy.

Ed objects when Pete calls his music hip-hop. What does Ed insist it actually is?

Pete's other gripe in the same scene is that the front door has been left open again, a habit that matters rather more once the dead start walking.

The film's UK opening weekend put it in how many cinemas?

It then ran five consecutive weekends in the UK top ten and three in the North American top ten.