Thread by @ATRightMovies

HOT FUZZ was released 17 years ago this week. The second entry in Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy and one of the most beloved British comedies this century, the tale of how it was made is like firing two guns whilst jumping through the air…

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After the huge success of Shaun of the Dead in 2004, production company StudioCanal gave its director/co-writer Edgar Wright and star/co-writer Simon Pegg pretty much free rein to do what they wanted for a follow-up.

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With a mutual love of classic action movies, and seeing a gap in the market for a great British cop film, Wright and Pegg set to work. Watching 138 police movies along the way, they spent 18 months writing a comedy-cop-action film, ultimately calling it Hot Fuzz.

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With the script greenlit immediately, the duo set about working on the cast. Pegg was the obvious choice as lead character – a PC transferred from London to Sandford called Nicholas Angel.

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Pegg had never made an action flick before. He spent 4 weeks on an intensive fitness regime, as well as carrying out weapons training. He was also proud of the fact he learned how to skid a bicycle properly along the way.

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Nick Frost was back as Pegg’s on-screen sidekick, playing the buddy cop movie-loving PC Danny Butterman. Frost agreed to appear in the film on the condition he could name his character himself. Wright gave him a list of 20 action films to watch. He watched one – Bad Boys II.

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The role of chief antagonist Simon Skinner was written for Timothy Dalton, so Wright and Pegg were delighted when he agreed to appear in the film. At the first read-through, Pegg and Wright shared a thumbs up when they realised Dalton was as perfect as they hoped.

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The idea of Skinner sporting a moustache wasn’t written in the script – it was Dalton’s idea. He thought that it might hark back to his Prince Barin character in Flash Gordon and bring up memories of the sliminess of that character.

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Dalton later said the film (specifically the scene Skinner and Angel have a shootout during a car chase) was the most fun he’s ever had on a set. Pegg echoed the sentiment, saying having a fist fight with James Bond was a big thrill.

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At the 2004 BAFTAs, British acting legend Jim Broadbent had approached Wright and Pegg and asked them to write a part for him in their next film, as he’d loved Shaun of the Dead so much. As such, Inspector Frank Butterman was created just for him.

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Edgar Wright has a cameo in the film as a shelf stacker in the supermarket. And two of the judges for the Best Kept Village competition who show up at the end are played by the mothers of Wright and Pegg.

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There are other cameos. Peter Jackson appears as the Santa Claus who stabs Angel. Garth Jennings shows up as a crack dealer. And Cate Blanchett is the masked Crime Scene Officer, also Angel’s ex-girlfriend.

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The Sandford Police dog is named Saxon, played by a pooch called Sampson. He was once up for a job in the Police Force, but turned down for being too friendly.

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There is a range of great, veteran British actors in secondary parts. Edward Woodward plays one of the Sandford conspirators. Paul Freeman is the village Reverend, Billie Whitelaw is hotelier Joyce Cooper, and Bill Nighy is Chief Inspector Kenneth.

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In honour of other action films which have titles made up of two words of the same length (Point Break, Lethal Weapon) Wright wanted to call the film Hott Fuzz. Pegg vetoed it, saying they’d have to explain the extra ‘t’ in every interview.

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Wright/Pegg interviewed many PCs and found a large number were called Andy – hence the Two Andys (Paddy Considine and Rafe Spall). Doris (Olivia Colman) was so named as, apparently, female officers would sometimes be referred to as ‘Doris’ (times have changed, we’d hope).

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Nick Angel was the name of a member of the film’s music department. Wright and Pegg thought it was a great name, and called their lead character after him. And Sandford comes from the name of a fictional town used in a lot of UK police training scenarios.

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The first draft of the script included a love interest for Angel called Victoria. She was cut when they Pegg and Wright realised she didn’t have much to do. And lots of her dialogue was given to Danny, with barely any changes required.

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As this is the part 2 of the Cornetto Trilogy, the ice cream shows up in the film. In Shaun of the Dead it is a red wrapper (blood/horror), in Hot Fuzz it is blue (the police) and in The World’s End it is green (for aliens).

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Another running gag from the trilogy is the fence jump. In Shaun of the Dead, Shaun says “Never taken a shortcut before?” and the fence collapses. Here, Pegg delivers the same line, and Danny steamrolls through the fence.

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There is a lot of foreshadowing. First time we meet Joyce, Angel gives her an answer to a crossword – “Fascism” – and she responds “Wonderful!” Later, the Sandford station board predicts the cloaked killers with a pic of a person in black and the line ‘Keep them Out’.

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At the village fete, a voice on the tannoy says “someone's in for a surprise at 3 o'clock”. Tim Messenger's death is at 3pm. The Andy's mention every farmer and his mother have guns in Sandford. Then, the first two people to shoot at Angel are a farmer and his mother.

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While writing the script, Pegg and Wright read a book by film critic Roger Ebert that listed all the action movie cliches. They included as many as they could, like a friendly person in charge turning into the bad guy, and a shot of road marking from a moving camera.

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One of the forces out to stop Angel is the Neighborhood Watch Alliance, who keep an eye on things in Sandford. They were named after the rap group NWA, whose most famous song was called F**k Tha Police.

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Before filming the lay-by scene, Pegg and Frost reportedly had an argument. Frost was apparently being rude and making the assistant directors fetch his coffee. Pegg told him to get it himself, and they didn’t speak for the rest of the scene.

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Edgar Wright’s hometown of Wells, Somerset, is where the Sandford scenes were filmed. The alley down which Angel chases shoplifter is the path Wright used to walk to school (and apparently where he had his first kiss).

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Wells, has a 500-year-old cathedral right in the centre of the city. Sandford is a small village, so Wells Cathedral had to be digitally removed in post-production from any shot in which it appeared.

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Before Somerfield was chosen as the supermarket to appear in the film, Pegg and Wright created a fictional store called Summeraisles – a homage to the name of the fictional setting of The Wicker Man.

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Wright worked at that specific Somerfield store, and Skinner was based on his old manager, Mike Stockwell. They changed the name of the character as they thought ‘Stockwell’ sounded like a pun, considering the character’s job.

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Angel tells Danny his notepad is his most important weapon, to which Danny takes his notepad out and shows Angel a flipbook cartoon. It was drawn by Edgar wright’s brother, Oscar, a comic book illustrator.

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Also, to make up Danny’s huge home DVD collection, Wright filled the shelves with his own collection, as well as Oscar’s, and fellow director Joe Cornish’s collection too. (Cornish has a cameo as Crime Scene Profiler, Bob.

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Bill Bailey plays twin desk sergeants, Turner and Turner. One Turner reads Complicity by Iain Banks, while the other reads The State of the Art by Iain M. Banks. They’re the same author, Banks uses the ‘M’ for his science fiction books.

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When Angel and Danny are discussing the first four victims, Angel jokingly states the actual motives: The head of the Drama club was a terrible actor, his young lover had a unique laugh, the reporter was a bad speller, and the rich land developer had an ugly house.

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Angel and Skinner's meeting at the supermarket was filmed from Skinner’s perspective one day and Angel’s the next. To everyone’s surprise, Dalton turned up the second day and played the role as normal. Pegg said it showed his professionalism.

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Shaun of the Dead gets a couple of nods in the film. Shaun’s famous cricket bat is in the background of one scene and the DVD bargain bin in Skinner’s supermarket has the Spanish version, called Zombies Party.

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When Skinner raises his glass to the memory of Eve and Martin, Dalton improvised briefly looking into the camera. Wright loved the moment so much he had the sound of a cash register ching edited into the same time.

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When Tim Messenger is killed by the falling spire, you may think it’s a coincidence he’s standing in exactly the right place. The idea was that the killer left some treats for sweet tooth Messenger on the ground in the right place.

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Messenger’s kill show was most time-consuming effects moment. It was filmed by standing a dummy against a green screen and then, at the moment of impact, detonating a small device played inside its head, with fake blood inside.

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When Inspector Frank Butterman appears at the town's council after Angel finds them, his uniform is very old. He has ‘VR’ (for Victoria Regina) on his helmet, highlighting the idea of Sandford being massively out of touch.

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Filming the fight between Michael (Rory McCann) and Angel, Pegg's stunt double broke his collarbone. With tight shooting schedules, Pegg stepped in to do the fight himself.

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During the pub shootout, we hear a familiar sound. As Mary and Roy reload, we hear music from an arcade game in the pub. We also hear it when Ed plays the fruit machine in Shaun of the Dead, and in The Hole In The Wall pub in The World’s End.

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Wright wanted the deli counter glass to shatter during the supermarket shootout. With the glass being curved though, it was deemed too expensive to replace. Wright explains the glass not breaking by adding in sounds of bullets ricocheting off it, as if it is bulletproof.

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The Visual effects supervisor was Richard Briscoe and he said he and Wright highlight blood and gore for a reason. "The more extreme you make it, the more people enjoy the humour in how ridiculous it is. It's like the limbless Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

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Early in the film, one of the Andys says a swan can break a man’s arm. At the end of the film, having been made to crash by the swan in the car, we see Inspector Butterman’s arm in a sling as he's put onto the ambulance.

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On a budget of $16m, Hot Fuzz took $80.7m at the box office, so was a big money spinner. It has gone on to be regarded as a British comedy classic, and was rated in the Top 100 Best British Films by Empire Magazine.

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Finally… Edgar Wright was once asked by an interviewer why he felt the need to steal all of his quick-cut montages from Snatch. Wright replied “I didn’t. I stole them from Martin Scorsese. Just like Guy Ritchie did.”

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