Edgar Wright’s ‘The World’s End’ Adds Martin Freeman And Eddie Marsan To Cast

Edgar Wright’s upcoming The World’s End just added two new cast members to help bring on the deadpan British funny: Martin Freeman of The Office (UK) and The Hobbit fame and Eddie Marsan, who is most recently recognizable from his appearances in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes films.

If you’re an Edgar Wright fan, then you know that Shaun of the Dead and HotFuzz were the first two entries in a thematic trilogy unofficially dubbed the “Three Flavours Cornetto” or the “Blood and Ice Cream” trilogy. You also know that the planned third film is called The World’s End, that it will star Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, and that it’s about darn time Wright started seriously working on it again.

Now you know that the film is adding Freeman and Marsan to the cast, who will presumably join Pegg, Frost, and Paddy Considine as five childhood friends who reunite a full 20-years after taking on “the mother of all pub crawls” to attempt it again, reports Empire Online. The twist is that the group of English funnymen are trying to outrun a potential apocalypse, racing to The World’s End pub before the world … well … ends.

Interestingly, Pegg plays a character called “Gary King” in The World’s End, while stalwart companion Nick Frost plays “Andy Knight.” Does this mean that Considine, Freeman, and Marsan will also be named after chess pieces? What’s left, Bishop, Rook, and Queen?

In any case, Freeman will fit into Wright’s mold particularly well, having done it once before already. The actor, who will play Bilbo Baggins in the highly-anticipated screen adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit was actually already in Wright’s Hot Fuzz where he shared a brief scene with Simon Pegg.

The World’s End will release on August 14, 2013. Are you excited?