The World's End is a 2013 science fiction comedy film directed by Edgar Wright from a screenplay by Wright and Simon Pegg. It is the third and final installment in the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, after Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007). It stars Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan, Rosamund Pike, and Pierce Brosnan. In the film, five friends return to their hometown to reattempt a pub crawl they failed twenty-three years earlier, only to discover the town is in the midst of an alien invasion.
The film entered initial development in 1995 after Wright wrote a screenplay titled Crawl about teenagers on a pub crawl; after deciding it was better suited as a comedic exploration of young adulthood and aging, he reworked the screenplay with Pegg in the early 2010s. The film was produced by Relativity Media, Big Talk Productions, and Working Title Films. Principal photography began on 28 September 2012 and lasted until that December, with filming locations including Elstree Studios, Letchworth Garden City, and Welwyn Garden City. The film's stunts were coordinated by members of Jackie Chan Stunt Team, and The World's End is considered a social science fiction film.
The World's End premiered at Leicester Square in London on 10 July 2013, and was first theatrically released in the United Kingdom by Universal Pictures nine days later. It was later released in the United States by Focus Features on 23 August. The film received positive reviews from critics, with praise for the screenplay, performances of the cast, humour, and Wright's direction. It won Best British Film at the 19th Empire Awards, and was nominated for Best Comedy at the 19th Critics' Choice Awards. The World's End was also a commercial success, grossing $46.1 million worldwide.
REAR COVER
"Packed with comedy and action"
For Gary King (Simon Pegg) and Andy Knightley (Nick Frost) it was supposed to be the ultimate reunion - one night, five friends, twelve bars. A boozy quest to 'The World's End' pub on which only the strongest will survive. Having the time of their lives, they're ready to take on the world ... but tonight they might just have to save it. From Edgar Wright, Director of 'Shaun of the Dead' and
'Hot Fuzz', comes a wildly entertaining thrill ride of outrageous humour and explosive action that will raise a glass to the apocalypse.
2 INCLUDES OVER 1 HOUR OF APOCALYPTIC BONUS! Completing The Golden Mile: The Making of The World's End • Deleted Scene + Out-takes
• Commentary with Edgar Wright & Simon Pegg + VFX Breakdown • Photo Galleries • Trivia Track
DETAILED PLOT
Gary King, an immature 40-year-old alcoholic, decides to recapture his youth by contacting his boyhood friends Oliver Chamberlain, Peter Page, Steven Prince, and Andrew Knightley and inviting them to complete the Golden Mile, a pub crawl encompassing the 12 pubs of their hometown of Newton Haven, the last of them being the World's End. The group attempted the crawl as teens in 1990, but failed to reach the final three pubs. Andy, now a teetotaller due to a drunk driving accident years before involving himself and Gary, reluctantly agrees to join after Gary tells him that his mother died.
The group encounters Oliver's sister, Sam, over whom Gary and Steven fought in school; during the teenage crawl, Gary had sex with Sam in a pub bathroom. The town residents do not recognise the group, except for one bartender who tells them that they are banned. After Peter encounters Shane Hawkins, his childhood bully who does not seem to remember him, Gary interrupts Peter's account of his torment after going off to buy a round of shots. Angry and upset at the group after they admonish him for his childishness, stubbornness and selective memory, Gary goes to the toilet, where he gets into a fight with a teenager and knocks his head off, exposing him as an android. As Gary's friends find him in the bathroom to confront him over lying about his mother's death, the other members of the teen's gang, all androids, enter the bathroom and engage in a battle against the human friends. The group realises that most of the town has been replaced with androids (which they dub "Blanks"), explaining why no one remembers them. Shocked and overwhelmed, Andy starts drinking again.
Gary urges them to continue the pub crawl to avoid suspicion, which the rest of the group agree to only because of Gary's stubbornness. The group bumps into Sam once more. Sam, Gary, and Steven fight Blank versions of Sam's childhood friends, known as the "twins". Sam tags along with them, and Steven is told by Basil, another resident known as a eccentric conspiracy theorist who has not yet been replaced by a Blank, that the Blanks are trying to build a galactic conglomerate and that any humans refusing will be replaced with identical simulants. Sam realises this independently after witnessing someone who she knew died in a motorcycle accident eight years earlier. The Blanks attempt to convince the humans to join their assimilation. Unwilling to lose their humanity and, finding out that both Oliver and their old school teacher, Mr. Sheperd, have been replaced, the group fights a bar full of Blanks. The surviving members of the group realise, after noticing that Oliver's surgically-removed "6"-shaped birth mark had returned, that Blanks cannot replicate scarification, prompting them all, except Gary, to show each other their childhood scars (all of which were in some way caused by Gary).
Gary lets Sam escape Newton Haven by herself; Pete gets captured after attacking Shane's Blank; and when Andy and Steven want to go home, Gary ditches them to finish the Golden Mile alone. Andy and Steven chase after Gary, as does the rest of Newton Haven, and Steven is captured. After being confronted by Andy, Gary reveals his recent suicide attempt and his jealousy of Andy's seemingly fulfilled adult life; Andy reveals that his marriage is troubled. Andy tries to stop Gary from drawing his final pint, but Gary is determined to complete the Mile, believing that it is all he has left.
When Gary pulls the lever to pour himself a pint, the floor lowers into a hidden chamber. A disembodied alien entity, the Network, tells Gary and Andy that the Blank invasion is the first step to humanity joining a galactic community. The Network offers Gary eternal youth if he becomes a Blank, but he refuses and decapitates his Blank self. Along with Andy and Steven, who has survived, Gary demands that humanity be left to its own devices, stating that all but three of Newton Haven residents have been replaced with Blanks, and expressing horror at how humans that have been replaced have been composted. The Network, exasperated, agrees to abandon the invasion. Sam rescues Gary, Andy, and Steven as the town is destroyed, but they are unable to outrun the electromagnetic pulse triggered by the departure of the Network, which deactivates Sam's car. Staring out onto the destruction, Gary tearfully apologises to Andy.
Some time later, Andy relates to other survivors of the pulse that it triggered a worldwide blackout that destroyed all electrical power on Earth, sending humanity back to the Dark Ages and killing an unknown number of humans in the process. The remaining Blanks reactivated a few weeks later and, although they are now independent from the Network, they are mistrusted and shunned by most of the surviving humans. Andy's marriage has recovered, Steven is in a relationship with Sam, and the Blank versions of Peter and Oliver have picked up where their human versions left off. Andy relates that he has no idea what happened to Gary.
In the ruins of Newton Haven, the now-sober Gary enters a pub with the Blank versions of his younger friends and orders water. When the bartender refuses to serve Blanks, Gary leads his friends into a brawl.p