Simon Pegg is on a hot streak in his film career. He has supporting roles in both the Star Trek and Mission Impossible franchises, as well as a voice role in the popular Ice Age movies. Most recently, Pegg starred in Steven Spielberg's hit Ready Player One. Things are going well for Pegg. Despite his silver screen success, the actor, comedian, and screenwriter, is planning to shift his attention towards television. Pegg explained his decision, saying:
The opportunities that television affords now are just super different. If we want to run a business, there is no money in independent cinema, unfortunately. I still want to make it and I still want to create it but the film side of Big Talk productions which made Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Paul and The World's End really wasn't the money-making side. It's a really rickety world out there for filmmakers and there are no sort of mid-budget movies anymore. For financial reasons, really, television is such a fertile marketplace: that's where it is at present.
Simon Pegg expertly explained his TV-minded thinking in an interview with The Quietus, when asked what has drawn him back to his television origins. Pegg went on to highlight that the barrier between the perceptions of television versus movies is starting to disappear. So what is the story on the new TV show Pegg is working on? Here is what we know.
Simon Pegg and his frequent collaborator Nick Frost are planning to launch a paranormal comedy TV series entitled Truth Seekers. The series is a series within a series. The show is set around a team of ghost hunters with a YouTube channel. Things get incredibly interesting when they start to get contacted by real ghosts. As of the interview, Pegg was still polishing the pilot episode.
All of what Simon Pegg says about television is true. In the last decade, prestige TV has earned practically all of the respect given to movies considered on the same level. Pegg is not the only actor to see the merit in television, which once came loaded with a stigma. To be blunt, a TV actor was appreciated on a completely different level than a movie star. Now the lines between what was once thought the final and most prestigious frontier of the acting world is being re-examined.
A decade ago, it would have been considered shocking that Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, and now Meryl Streep would star on a TV series together. Television is changing, and actors like Simon Pegg are ready to embrace the ride. Truth Seekers sounds like a found footage TV show with a twist that while humorous, seems very keen on sharing the truths surrounding its premise.
Simon Pegg is not done with movies yet. Pegg has a starring role in the upcoming thriller Terminal starring opposite Margot Robbie and Mike Myers. That movie comes out May 11. Pegg will reprise his role as Benji for the fourth time in the sixth installment of the Mission Impossible action franchise, entitled Mission Impossible: Fallout. It hits theaters July 27.
There is currently no premiere date for Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's Truth Seekers, so stay tuned. For more of what is coming up on TV, check out our guide to TV's midseason and summer premieres.
