Simon Pegg Reluctantly Bows Out of INGLORIOUS BASTARDS, Announces Greg Mottola As Director of PAUL!

Beaks here... While most of us are excited at the prospect of Quentin Tarantino rushing into production on INGLORIOUS BASTARDS so that he can screen the finished movie at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, this tight time frame has cost him some talent. Last week, we learned that David Krumholtz was forced to decline a part in the picture due to prior commitments (he's since been replaced by FREAKS & GEEKS' Samm Levine); now, we've news that "insurmountable scheduling difficulties" will keep Simon Pegg from kicking Nazi ass. How's Pegg taking it? According to his "Peggster" blog, "I'm trying to remain upbeat, as Tom Selleck said 'Who the hell is Indiana Jones anyway?'" Despite this heartbreak, Pegg does have reason to be upbeat. Per his blog again, some "Superbad" news:

But "superbad" as in really good, as in the the film, Superbad, directed by Greg Mottola who, coincidentally will be directing mine and Nick's new movie, Paul. So there it is, the superbad, good news... GREG MOTTOLA WILL BE DIRECTING PAUL!!!!!

For those of you wondering "Why the hell not Edgar?", this has nothing to do with the "Three Flavors" trilogy (slated to close out at some point with the enticingly-titled THE WORLD'S END). Written by Pegg and Frost, PAUL has been described as a "road movie about two British geeks in America," which is phenomenally vague, but who cares? I'm just excited by the idea of the very talented Mottola collaborating with these two maniacs. It's also cool that he's building on the momentum of SUPERBAD to finally make good on the promise of 1996's THE DAYTRIPPERS (he's currently putting the finishing touches on ADVENTURELAND). He's got a decade's worth of filmmaking to catch up on. Will I miss Pegg as Lt. Hicox in INGLORIOUS BASTARDS? Absolutely. But this is a more than acceptable trade-off.