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Q: I saw an awesome Simon Pegg movie called "A Fantastic Fear of Everything," but I'd never heard of it. Why wasn't it as broadly advertised as his others, such as "Paul" or "Shaun of the Dead?"

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Author: 
Adam Thomlison / TV Media

It seems most likely that the lack of a splash made by "A Fantastic Fear of Everything" can be chalked up to a chain of factors: 1. It was weird, so; 2. Critics didn't like it, so; 3. Distributors didn't want it (at least not over here, and not at first).

The film was only released in North America in 2014, first online and only later in a very limited theatrical run. It was released in Britain, where it was made, in 2012, when it was supposed to come out, but the reviews weren't great.

Had they been better, perhaps a North American distributor would have stepped up sooner.

It was always chancy, though. "A Fantastic Fear of Everything" was Pegg's return to low-budget horror-comedy, the genre that brought him to fame with 2004's "Shaun of the Dead." However, that film's huge success was an anomaly -- low-budget foreign horror-comedies don't tend to be big hits.

Also, it was weird. "A Fantastic Fear of Everything" is a comedy about an author who becomes so paranoid that he's afraid of even going to the laundromat (laundry seems to be a recurring theme in the film, and he spends large amounts of it wearing just a pair of briefs).

 

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