Pegg’s alien friend

When we learned that lifechums Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (SHAUN OF THE DEAD, SPACED, HOT FUZZ) were reuniting for a comedy called PAUL, it came with the following synopsis: “Story revolves around two British slackers who after visiting Comic-Con go on a road trip to Area 51 where they encounter a small alien named Paul, who enlists them to help him find his way home.”

SUPERBAD director Greg Mottola is keeping the boys busy (while usual collaborator Edgar Wright is making SCOTT PILGRIM), and has spilled a few more details about that extraterrestrial dude of the title. Or more specifically, what he’ll be made of: “He’s basically an alien who may be, let’s say, 70% CGI and the big challenge is that he needs to be a very funny, comedic method actor,” Mottola says in this podcast. “It’s not the kind of CGI character where we people to say ‘Oh wow, look what they did, that’s so cool’. It’s actually the kind of CGI character where we want people to just treat like another actor in the film, and he should be fully believable and multi-faceted and has to give a great performance, he just doesn’t exist. We’ve been doing a lot of test trying to figure out how to pull that one off.”

Hmmm… no small challenge, that (and no, that’s not an actual representation of the alien in the pic). Can the guy who brought McLovin to life accomplish what George Lucas could not? Yeah, probably.