How Edgar Wright’s Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy Movies Connect to One Another

Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg hit a home run when they decided to craft the now widely successful Three Flavours Cornetto film trilogy. When it comes to making audiences laugh, the endeavor can be a swinging hit or a critical miss. The characters must be over-the-top but relatable, the jokes have to be natural yet stand out, and the overall plot must be captivating, but not overly complicated. As seasoned writers in the entertainment industry, Wright and Pegg, who have proven themselves to be a well-oiled duo, know how to bring out the laughs and a message simultaneously.

Three Flavours Cornetto isn’t well-known just by its trilogy name, but the three films included are staples in the comedy genre: Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007), and The World’s End (2013). Over almost a decade, Wright and Pegg’s films amassed over $150 million worldwide in box office sales on just a combined $38 million budget. Each film in theThree Flavours Cornetto trilogy also boasts high ratings among novice audiences and professional reviewers alike. The lowest score on Rotten Tomatoes (89%) is attributed to The World’s End, at the time of writing. Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz hold a 92% and 91% score, respectively. Blink and you might miss it, but the three films are actually connected in more ways than one.

Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg Wanted Free Ice Cream

Three Flavours Cornetto Was Jokingly Coined by Wright

Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg are best known for their collaborations in comedy, although they each boast lengthy resumes that highlight a variety of genres. Wright made his directorial debut in 1995 with the Western comedy film A Fistful of Fingers. Pegg made his acting debut in the same year as Jools in Faith of the Future (1995-1998), although he also wrote and starred in three episodes of the short-lived series Six Pairs of Pants.

Between 1999 and 2001, Wright and Pegg (along with Nick Frost, their other frequent collaborator) worked together on the British sitcom Spaced, which Pegg co-wrote with Jessica Hynes. Three years earlier, Wright and Pegg met for the first time when Wright directed the British miniseries Asylum (1996); Pegg portrayed Simon, a patient in an asylum.

In line with Wright and Pegg’s influence on the comedy genre, Three Flavours Cornetto was not meant to be taken seriously (until it was). Shaun of the Dead first mentions the British dessert in a throwaway scene; after a night of drinking, the hungover Ed (Frost) asks Shaun (Pegg) to buy him a Cornetto, which Ed consumes before the film continues. Upon the film’s release, Wright mentioned that he used to eat a Cornetto when he was hungover and simply passed on the cure to Ed. At the Shaun of the Dead after party, Wright, Pegg, and the rest of the attendees received free Cornetto ice cream cones. Happy to receive the dessert, Wright and Pegg decided to try and get more Cornettos by including more references to the dessert in Hot Fuzz, which was in the very early writing stage.

While Cornetto ice cream was briefly featured without serious intent in Shaun of the Dead, all the references to the dessert in Hot Fuzz ​​​​​​were intentional. Cornettos can be seen several times throughout the film, such as when protagonists Nicholas Angel (Pegg) and Danny Butterman (Frost) buy some at a convenience store. When Nicholas makes another purchase, a Cornetto wrapper can be seen falling onto the counter as well.

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Despite their best efforts, the cast and crew of Hot Fuzz were not given more free treats, although Cornetto released an official statement thanking Wright and Pegg for the shoutouts. It was after the release of Hot Fuzz (and during the early production of The World’s End) that Wright first named his trilogy Three Flavours Cornetto, although it was initially meant to be a lighthearted reference to Three Colors, a psychological drama trilogy by Krzysztof Kieślowski.

Blink and you’ll miss it, but the desserts featured in each Three Flavours Cornetto were specifically chosen depending on each film’s story. In Shaun of the Dead, Ed eats a strawberry Cornetto, which represents blood and gore. In Hot Fuzz, the policemen purchase classic Cornettos in blue wrappers. Finally, in The World’s End, the Cornetto wrapper featured briefly, blowing through the wind, is mint. The last dessert, the green-tinged flavor, represents the alien and science fiction elements of the final film in the trilogy.

Edgar Wright’s Film Trilogy Uses Recurring Actors

Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End are not connected plot-wise. In Shaun of the Dead, Shaun and Ed, electronic salesmen, wake up to discover that a zombie apocalypse has overtaken London. Shaun and Ed, although not the most reliable or mature, devise a plan to rescue Shaun’s mother, Barbara, and Shaun’s recent ex-girlfriend, Liz. While Shaun of the Dead is a zombie comedy, Hot Fuzz travels in the opposite direction as an action comedy.

In the second installment of the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, Nicholas Angel, an officer based in London, transfers to another police department at the beginning of the film. When unexplained deaths begin to occur, Nicholas and his partner, Danny Butterman, must solve the mystery and apprehend the culprit. The World’s End, the final installment, is a sci-fi comedy that follows a group of friends who discover an alien invasion while on a pub crawl.

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Although the Three Flavours Cornetto films aren’t set in the same universe, each one features the same core cast and crew. Edgar Wright directed all three installments; Wright and Pegg also co-wrote every screenplay. Nina Park produced each film in the Three Flavours Cornetto series, with Tim Bevan and Eric Fellers, the co-chairmen of Working Title Films (the company, a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, most recently produced Bright Jones: Mad About The Boy, released in February 2025).

Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End share the following actors: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Julia Deakin, Martin Freeman, Bill Nighy, Rafe Spall, Patricia Franklin, and Garth Jennings. The actors who appear in two of the three films are Reece Shearsmith, Michael Smiley, David Bradley, Paddy Considine, Alice Lowe, and Nicola Cunningham.

Themes Present Throughout Three Flavours Cornetto

Besides a shared love of ice cream, the three films in Wright’s Three Flavours Cornetto share similar themes, despite having different premises. One of the largest themes running through Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End revolves around relationships, from platonic friendships to more complex endeavors. In all three films, Pegg and Frost star as the main characters who fuel the narrative, although in Hot Fuzz, Nicholas and Danny aren’t friends, but partners. In Shaun of the Dead and The World’s End, however, the men are BFFs; across the trilogy, they work together to solve an extraordinary problem. Shaun of the Dead is the only film in Wright’s trilogy to place more emphasis on romantic relationships, which he achieves through Shaun and Liz.

The Three Flavours Cornetto series hasn’t become a successful trilogy for no reason; the films pack in the humor with their over-the-top stories, witty one-liners, and ridiculous characters. From an extremely short car chase to a three-man translation effort, Hot Fuzz takes the cake with its timeless jokes. Shaun of the Dead kicked off the trilogy as well as Wright and Pegg’s first installment, especially when Shaun and Ed try to overpower the zombies with unconventional methods. The World’s End‘s humor comes from its gags and the misfortune of characters, such as when the pub-crawling group first discovers the invasion of aliens while simply trying to enjoy a pint.

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Despite how funny the films are, each installment of Three Flavours Cornetto highlights one aspect of all the characters Pegg plays: while ambitious and relatively quick-thinking, Shaun, Nicholas, and Gary are quite immature and in desperate need of growing up. Before the events of Shaun of the Dead start to kick off, Shaun (and Ed) work as an electronics salesman, but Shaun, in particular, is stagnant in life and unwilling to change the status quo; this is what leads to his breakup with Liz just before the zombies attack. The World’s End features Gary in a similar light: while Gary and his friends have all grown up, Gary can’t completely let go of his younger days, which leads to the proposed bar crawl and the film’s subsequent events.

While Wright’s Three Flavours Cornetto was considered funny above all else, the protagonists portrayed by Pegg all end up in a similar predicament, which forces each character to grow up (somewhat against their will).

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  Hot Fuzz

  Release Date

  February 14, 2007
  

  Runtime

  121 minutes

  Director

  Edgar Wright

  
  

  
  

  
  

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  The World’s End

  
  

  Release Date

  August 23, 2013
  

  Runtime

  1 Hour 49 Minutes

  Director

  Edgar Wright