12 Times A Director Went On An INSANE Streak Of Great Movies
6. Edgar Wright: Five Films From 2004-2017
The Streak: Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, The World's End, Baby Driver
For a man who’s been making movies for 15 years, it’s astonishing that Edgar Wright has never released a dud. Even arguably his “worst” film, The World’s End, offered a solid spin on social sci-fi, and boasted some of the director’s greatest character work to date. The only reason it was considered in any way a disappointment at the time was because of the genuine masterpieces the preceded it.
His debut film Shaun of the Dead was the kind of kick up the a** British cinema needed, sending up the zombie sub-genre in a way that didn’t just lovingly pay homage to icons that came before, but simultaneously pushed genre boundaries. Hot Fuzz continued the same pastiche focus - this time the “target” was buddy-cop action movies - and you’ll be hard-pressed to find any two people who can agree on which was better.
Wright moved out of his comfort zone, and into the Hollywood system, with his next flick, an adaptation of the Scott Pilgrim graphical novels. The jump proved that Wright wasn’t relying on comedy to get him by, and could create genuinely blistering action sequences that could fit neatly into any major blockbuster.
After some public drama surrounding his departure from Ant-Man, his last film, Baby Driver, proved to be his biggest financial success yet, essentially birthing a new sub-genre in the way it structured its editing around the movie's soundtrack. It was unlike anything else the director had ever done, potentially even marking the dawn of a new era and a hard break from Wright's conventional style.
[JB]