Hollywood Snubbed Us, Says Angry Comedy Star

Simon Pegg, one of the brightest stars of British comedy, has denounced as 'a flagrant snub' a decision to exclude him from an American version of his hit sitcom Spaced.

Pegg, who co-wrote and starred in the cult Channel 4 program, says the fact that neither he, co-creator Jessica Hynes, nor director Edgar Wright were consulted was 'an effective vote of no confidence in the very people who created the show'.

The comic actor is now well known in the United States for starring in the zombie romantic comedy Shaun of the Dead, which he also co-wrote, and is angry that the producers are using his name in publicity material to promote the pilot without his permission. He says the behavior of those involved in the deal for the remake - Granada, Wonderland and Warner Brothers - displays 'a sheer lack of respect' in 'respectively selling out and appropriating our ideas without even letting us know'.

As shooting starts on the new version of the show, first broadcast between 1999 and 2001, he claimed that none of the original creators had been consulted. The pilot for the new sitcom is being made for the Fox network and one of the executive producers is Joseph McGinty Nichol, known as McG, director of the Charlie's Angels movies and of the forthcoming Terminator 4.

Pegg has stressed that he does not object to US adaptations in principle. Rights to the show were sold by Granada America to Wonderland Sound and Vision and Warner Bros TV and Pegg acknowledges he has no legal right to involvement in the project, but says he, Hynes and Wright are all annoyed to be left out.

His success in Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, both directed by Wright, have won the actor wide recognition in America and he is about to star with Kirsten Dunst in an adaptation of Toby Young's memoir How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. Pegg is particularly annoyed that press releases for the new sitcom have used his name alongside Wright's to boost its profile.

Fans of the original show, including a sizable US contingent, have expressed dismay at the prospect of a bland new treatment, and both Wright and Hynes have criticized the planned sitcom. On his website Wright says he does not want to be associated with it.

'That show was very personal to us. It's about Simon and Jessica, not just some format or high concept,' he writes. The director goes on to reveal he has 'a terrible recurring dream of being burgled in broad daylight (no joke, and no dream analyst required)'.

Referring to Variety magazine's summary of the show 'Single-cam half-hour revolves around a young man and woman who pose as a couple in order to rent a cheap apartment', he adds: 'It pains me to see it reduced to this.'

Hynes, known as Jessica Stevenson when Spaced was made, has used her blog to warn American viewers not to watch it. She also makes the suggestion that there should be a British remake of McG's hit Charlie's Angels called Charlie's Angles 'about three female architects who love to design buildings, make biscuits and wear button-up cardigans'.

When she first heard about the new sitcom, she claims she approached the American producers 'in a very English way, wondering if, you know, I'd been in the garden when they called'.

Josh Lawson, a young Australian described by Fox as 'Matthew Perry meets Robin Williams', has been cast in Pegg's role of Tim, renamed Ben and, according to an early review of the pilot script on the website Collider.com, it closely follows the first British episode. The pilot for NBC's version of the BBC sitcom The Office was also close to its UK counterpart, but developed a distinct voice. It remains a critical and ratings success. The British show's creators, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, were heavily involved in the development of the US version.

The central joke in Spaced was the use of overblown, American film clichés to tell the banal story of life in a north London flat share. It now seems that Hollywood is to have the last laugh.