''Hot Fuzz'' is a 2007
action comedy film
Action comedy is a genre that combines aspects of action and comedy. The genre is most prevalent in film with action comedy films, though several TV series fit this genre.
Film
The action comedy film is a film genre that combines aspects of acti ...
directed by
Edgar Wright
Edgar Howard Wright (born 18 April 1974) is an English filmmaker. He is known for his fast-paced and kinetic, satirical genre films, which feature extensive utilisation of expressive popular music, Steadicam tracking shots, dolly zooms and a ...
and written by Wright and
Simon Pegg. Starring Pegg,
Nick Frost,
Timothy Dalton
Timothy Leonard Dalton Leggett (; born 21 March 1946) is a British actor. Beginning his career on stage, he made his film debut as Philip II of France in the 1968 historical drama '' The Lion in Winter''. He gained international prominence a ...
, and
Jim Broadbent
James Broadbent (born 24 May 1949) is an English actor. He won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for his supporting role as John Bayley in the feature film '' Iris'' (2001), as well as winning a BAFTA TV Award and a Golden Globe for ...
, the film centres on two police officers investigating a series of mysterious and gruesome deaths in a
West Country
The West Country (occasionally Westcountry) is a loosely defined area of South West England, usually taken to include all, some, or parts of the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Bristol, and, less commonly, Wiltshire, Glouc ...
village. It is the second and most successful film in the ''
Three Flavours Cornetto'' trilogy, succeeding ''
Shaun of the Dead
''Shaun of the Dead'' is a 2004 zombie comedy film directed by Edgar Wright and written by Wright and Simon Pegg. Pegg stars as Shaun, a downtrodden salesman in London who is caught in a zombie apocalypse with his friend Ed ( Nick Frost). The ...
'' (2004) and followed by ''
The World's End'' (2013).
Over 100
action film
Action film is a film genre in which the protagonist is thrust into a series of events that typically involve violence and physical feats. The genre tends to feature a mostly resourceful hero struggling against incredible odds, which include l ...
s were used as inspiration for developing the script.
Principal photography
Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production.
Personnel
Besides the main film personnel, such as ...
took place in
Wells, Somerset
Wells () is a cathedral city and civil parish in the Mendip district of Somerset, located on the southern edge of the Mendip Hills, south-east of Weston-super-Mare, south-west of Bath and south of Bristol. Although the population recor ...
– Wright's hometown – over eleven weeks in early 2006.
Visual effects were developed by ten artists to expand on or add explosions, gore and gunfire scenes. The film opened on 16 February 2007 in the United Kingdom and 20 April in the United States to box office success, grossing US$80 million worldwide against a budget of $12–16 million. The film was praised by critics. In 2020,
''Empire'' named it the 67th greatest film of the 21st century.
Plot
PC Nicholas Angel, a high-achieving
Metropolitan Police
The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...
officer, is promoted to Sergeant, but his resentful colleagues arrange for him to be reassigned to the small rural town of Sandford,
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean.
The county town is the city of ...
, a regular "Village of the Year" winner. Angel is soon frustrated by the mundanity of the village, his lazy and incompetent colleagues, and local police and
Neighbourhood Watch Alliance (NWA) commitment to low crime statistics rather than law enforcement. His partner, PC Danny Butterman, whom he arrested for
drink-driving, is a fan of
buddy cop films and the son of Inspector Frank Butterman, Angel's superior.
Martin Blower and Eve Draper, the two lead actors of an
am-dram production of ''
Romeo and Juliet
''Romeo and Juliet'' is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about the romance between two Italian youths from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with ''Ham ...
'', whom Angel had pulled over for speeding, are murdered by a cloaked axe-wielding figure, who stages it as a car accident. Angel is the only officer who suspects foul play. Sent to resolve a small dispute, Angel discovers an illegal weapons stash, including an old
sea mine, and confiscates it. Angel warms to Danny, and they binge-watch action movies at Danny's home. That night, wealthy land developer George Merchant is attacked in his home by a cloaked figure and killed in a deliberate gas explosion.
Angel suspects that the killings are connected to a recent property deal. A local journalist, Tim Messenger, approaches Angel at a village fete, claiming to have information, but another cloaked figure dislodges masonry atop the church's tower, which falls and kills Messenger. Whilst buying Danny a late birthday gift, Angel learns from Leslie Tiller, the village florist, about her plans to sell her land to Merchant's business partners. While Angel retrieves his notebook, she is stabbed in the neck with her garden shears; Angel gives chase but loses the killer. Angel suspects Simon Skinner, a supermarket manager, as the property deal would have built a rival supermarket, but Skinner has an alibi.
After surmising that there may be multiple killers, Angel is attacked in his hotel room by one of Skinner's employees, Michael "Lurch" Armstrong. Angel knocks him out and learns of a secret NWA meeting at Sandford Castle. Angel confronts the NWA, led by Frank, who reveal that they committed the murders, staged as accidents, for various petty reasons as each victim threatened Sandford's chances of winning Village of the Year. Frank's motive is his late wife Irene; she put everything into helping Sandford win the first "Village of the Year", but
travellers ruined their chances the night before the judges arrived, driving her to suicide. Angel flees and falls into the castle's
catacombs
Catacombs are man-made subterranean passageways for religious practice. Any chamber used as a burial place is a catacomb, although the word is most commonly associated with the Roman Empire.
Etymology and history
The first place to be referred ...
, where he finds the corpses of the NWA's other victims. Danny appears and fakes killing Angel. Pretending to dispose of the body, Danny drives Angel away and urges him to return to London for his own safety. At a petrol station, Angel sees a rack of the films he and Danny bonded over and decides to return to Sandford.
Angel arms himself with the confiscated guns, then he and Danny engage in a shootout with the NWA. When Frank orders the other officers to arrest them, Angel and Danny convince them that Frank is the culprit. Frank flees and the officers besiege the supermarket, with Skinner fleeing in a car with Frank. Angel corners Skinner at Sandford's
model village
A model village is a type of mostly self-contained community, built from the late 18th century onwards by landowners and business magnates to house their workers. Although the villages are located close to the workplace, they are generally phys ...
, and after a brief fight Skinner is impaled through the jaw by a miniature church steeple. Frank attempts to escape in Angel's car but is attacked by a missing swan that Angel and Danny had recaptured earlier.
Angel's former superiors arrive and ask him to return to London, as the crime rate has risen heavily in his absence, but Angel decides to remain in Sandford. While the Sandford Police are going over the paperwork of the arrests, the elderly Tom Weaver, the last NWA member, bursts into the station wielding a
blunderbuss
The blunderbuss is a firearm with a short, large caliber barrel which is flared at the muzzle and frequently throughout the entire bore, and used with shot and other projectiles of relevant quantity or caliber. The blunderbuss is commonly consid ...
. He shoots at Angel, but Danny jumps in front. In the resulting struggle, Weaver accidentally activates the sea mine, killing himself and destroying the station.
One year later, Angel has been promoted to Inspector and head of the Sandford police, and Danny is Sergeant. After visiting Irene's grave, the two drive off to their next crime scene.
Cast
Production
Development
Director
Edgar Wright
Edgar Howard Wright (born 18 April 1974) is an English filmmaker. He is known for his fast-paced and kinetic, satirical genre films, which feature extensive utilisation of expressive popular music, Steadicam tracking shots, dolly zooms and a ...
wanted to write and direct a cop film because "there isn't really any tradition of cop films in the UK... We felt that every other country in the world had its own tradition of great cop action films and we had none."
Wright and Pegg spent eighteen months writing the script.
The first draft took eight months to develop, and after watching 138 cop-related films for dialogue and plot ideas and conducting over fifty interviews with police officers for research, the script was completed after another nine months.
The title was based on the various two-word titles of action films in the 1980s and 1990s.
In one interview Wright declared that he "wanted to make a title that really had very little meaning... like ''
Lethal Weapon'' and ''
Point Break'' and ''
Executive Decision''." In the same interview, Pegg joked that many action films' titles "seem to be generated from two hats filled with adjectives and nouns and you just, 'Okay, that'll do.'"
While writing the script, Wright, as well as Pegg, intended to include Frost as the partner for Pegg's character. Frost revealed that he would do the film only if he could name his character, and he chose "Danny Butterman".
Preparation and filming
![Hotfuzzfilming](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Hotfuzzfilming.jpg)
During the latter half of 2005,
Working Title Films approached several towns in
South West England
South West England, or the South West of England, is one of nine official regions of England. It consists of the counties of Bristol, Cornwall (including the Isles of Scilly), Dorset, Devon, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire. Cities ...
looking for an appropriate filming location. Pegg commented, "We're both
egg and Wrightfrom the
West Country
The West Country (occasionally Westcountry) is a loosely defined area of South West England, usually taken to include all, some, or parts of the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Bristol, and, less commonly, Wiltshire, Glouc ...
so it just seemed like it was the perfect and logical thing to drag those kind of ideas and those genres and those clichés back to our beginnings to where we grew up, so you could see high-octane balls-to-the-wall action in
Frome
Frome ( ) is a town and civil parish in eastern Somerset, England. The town is built on uneven high ground at the eastern end of the Mendip Hills, and centres on the River Frome. The town, about south of Bath, is the largest in the Mendip d ...
".
Stow-on-the-Wold
Stow-on-the-Wold is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England, on top of an 800-foot (244 m) hill at the junction of main roads through the Cotswolds, including the Fosse Way (A429), which is of Roman origin. The town was found ...
was considered amongst others, but after being turned away, the company settled upon
Wells
Wells most commonly refers to:
* Wells, Somerset, a cathedral city in Somerset, England
* Well, an excavation or structure created in the ground
* Wells (name)
Wells may also refer to:
Places Canada
*Wells, British Columbia
England
* Wells ...
in
Somerset
( en, All The People of Somerset)
, locator_map =
, coordinates =
, region = South West England
, established_date = Ancient
, established_by =
, preceded_by =
, origin =
, lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset
, lord_ ...
, Wright's hometown,
of which he has said "I love it but I also want to trash it".
Wells Cathedral
Wells Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Wells, Somerset, England, dedicated to St Andrew the Apostle. It is the seat of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, whose cathedra it holds as mother church of the Diocese of Bath and Wells. Built as a ...
was digitally painted out of every shot of the
cathedral city
Cathedral city is a city status in the United Kingdom.
Cathedral city may also refer to:
* Cathedral City, California, a city in Southern California, United States
* Cathedral City Cheddar, a brand of Cheddar cheese
* Cathedral City High Scho ...
, as Wright wanted the
Church of St Cuthbert to be the centre building for the fictional town of Sandford;
however, the
Bishop's Palace is identifiable in some shots (and was itself used as the setting for some scenes).
While shooting scenes in their uniforms, Pegg and Frost were often mistaken for genuine police officers and asked for directions by passers-by. Filming also took place at the
Hendon Police College
Hendon Police College is the principal training centre for London's Metropolitan Police.
Founded with the official name of the Metropolitan Police College, the college has officially been known as the Peel Centre since 1974, although its origi ...
, including the driving school skid pan and athletic track and at the
Metropolitan Police Specialist Training Centre
The Metropolitan Police Specialist Training Centre is a specialist training centre for the Metropolitan Police in Gravesend, Kent. It provides both Public Disorder and Specialist Firearms training to officers drawn from the MPS, British Transpor ...
at
Gravesend
Gravesend is a town in northwest Kent, England, situated 21 miles (35 km) east-southeast of Charing Cross (central London) on the Bank (geography), south bank of the River Thames and opposite Tilbury in Essex. Located in the diocese of Ro ...
.
Next to Hendon is
Mill Hill
Mill Hill is a suburb in the London Borough of Barnet, England. It is situated around northwest of Charing Cross. Mill Hill was in the historic county of Middlesex until 1965, when it became part of Greater London. Its population counted 18, ...
where Finchley Nurseries is located which is where the flower shop scene was filmed. The final scenes were filmed at the surviving ruins of
Waverley Abbey
Waverley Abbey was the first Cistercian abbey in England, founded in 1128 by William Giffard, the Bishop of Winchester.
Located about southeast of Farnham, Surrey, it is situated on a flood-plain; surrounded by current and previous channe ...
. Filming commenced on 19 March 2006 and lasted for eleven weeks.
After editing, Wright ended up cutting half an hour of footage from the film.
Outside references
Self-references
Wright has said that ''Hot Fuzz'' takes elements from his final amateur film, ''
Dead Right'', which he described as both "''
Lethal Weapon'' set in Somerset" and "a ''
Dirty Harry
''Dirty Harry'' is a 1971 American neo-noir action thriller film produced and directed by Don Siegel, the first in the ''Dirty Harry'' series. Clint Eastwood plays the title role, in his first outing as San Francisco Police Department (SFP ...
'' film in Somerset".
He uses some of the same locations in both films, including the
Somerfield
Somerfield (; originally Gateway) was a chain of small to medium-sized supermarkets operating in the United Kingdom. The company also previously owned the Kwik Save chain of discount food stores. The company was taken over by the Co-operative ...
supermarket, where he used to work as a shelf-stacker.
References to ''Shaun of the Dead'' are also present in the film. In one scene, Nicholas wants to chase a shoplifter by jumping over several garden fences; however, Danny is reluctant. Nicholas says, "What's the matter, Danny? You never taken a shortcut before?" He smiles assuredly before jumping over four in a row (according to the DVD commentary, Pegg vaulted over three fences, and a stunt man did a
back flip over the fourth). When Danny attempts it, he trips and falls through the fence. This is almost identical to a scene in ''Shaun of the Dead'', including the fall-through-fence gag, albeit with the pratfalling role reverse: in ''Shaun of the Dead'' it happens to Pegg's character rather than Frost's, and he falls over the fence rather than through it. The DVD commentary says that Frost purposely looked back at the camera after crashing through the fence, to show that he had done the stunt rather than someone else.
Frost's characters (Danny in ''Hot Fuzz'', Ed in ''Shaun of the Dead'') have a liking for
Cornetto ice cream.
Pegg and Wright have referred to ''Hot Fuzz'' as being the second film in the "
Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy
The ''Three Flavours Cornetto'' trilogy (also sometimes referred to as the ''Cornetto'' trilogy or the ''Blood and Ice Cream'' trilogy) is an anthology series of British comedic genre films directed by Edgar Wright, written by Wright and Simo ...
", with ''
Shaun of the Dead
''Shaun of the Dead'' is a 2004 zombie comedy film directed by Edgar Wright and written by Wright and Simon Pegg. Pegg stars as Shaun, a downtrodden salesman in London who is caught in a zombie apocalypse with his friend Ed ( Nick Frost). The ...
'' being the first and ''
The World's End'' being the third.
Other films
Various scenes in ''Hot Fuzz'' feature a variety of action film DVDs such as ''
Police Story 3: Super Cop'' and scenes from ''
Point Break'' and ''
Bad Boys II
''Bad Boys II'' is a 2003 American buddy cop action comedy film directed by Michael Bay, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and starring Martin Lawrence and Will Smith. The sequel to the 1995 film '' Bad Boys'' and the second film in the ''Bad Bo ...
''. Wright revealed that he had to get permission from every actor in each video clip, including stunt men, to use the clips and for the use of the DVD covers had to pay for the rights from the respective studios.
The film parodies clichés used in other action movies. On the topic of perceived gun fetishes in these movies, Pegg has said, "Men can't do that thing, which is the greatest achievement of humankind, which is to make another human, so we make metal versions of our own penises and fire more bits of metal out of the end into people's heads... It's our turn to grab the gun by the hilt and fire it into your face."
Despite this, Pegg maintains that the film is not a spoof, in that "They lack the sneer that a lot of parodies have that look down on their source material. Because we're looking up to it."
The film also includes various references to ''
The Wicker Man
''The Wicker Man'' is a 1973 British folk horror film directed by Robin Hardy and starring Edward Woodward, Britt Ekland, Diane Cilento, Ingrid Pitt, and Christopher Lee. The screenplay by Anthony Shaffer, inspired by David Pinner's 1967 ...
'', in which
Edward Woodward
Edward Albert Arthur Woodward, OBE (1 June 1930 – 16 November 2009) was an English actor and singer. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he began his career on stage. Throughout his career, he appeared in productions ...
had played a policeman tough on law and order.
Special effects
To illustrate the destruction of the mansion as a result of the gas explosion, gas mortars were placed in front of the building to create large-scale fireballs. The wave of fire engulfs the camera, and to achieve that effect, gas mortars were used again but were fired upwards into a black ceiling piece that sloped up towards the camera.
When the sequence was shot at a high speed, the flames appeared to surge across the ground. For one of the final scenes of the film, the Sandford police station is destroyed by an explosion. Part of the explosion was created by using a set model that showed its windows being blown out, while the building remained intact. The actual destruction of the building was depicted by exploding a miniature model of the station.
Similar to the work in ''Shaun of the Dead'', blood and gore was prevalent throughout the film.
Visual effects
Visual effects (sometimes abbreviated VFX) is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of
a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production.
The integration of live-action footage and other live-action foota ...
supervisor Richard Briscoe revealed the rationale for using the large amounts of blood: "In many ways, the more extreme you make it, the more people know it is stylised and enjoy the humour inherent in how ridiculous it is. It's rather like the (eventually) limbless
Black Knight
The black knight is a literary stock character who masks his identity and that of his liege by not displaying heraldry. Black knights are usually portrayed as villainous figures who use this anonymity for misdeeds. They are often contrasted with t ...
in
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The most time-consuming gore sequence involved a character's head being crushed by a section of a church. A dummy was used against a Chroma key">green screen and the head was detonated at the point when the object was about to impact the body. Throughout the film, over seventy gunfight shots were digitally augmented; Briscoe's rationale for adding the additional effects was that "The town square shootout, for example, is full of extra little hits scattered throughout, so that it feels like our hero characters really do have it all going off, all around them. It was a great demonstration of [how] seemingly very trivial enhancements can make a difference when combined across a sequence."
Promotion
The first two Trailer (promotion), teaser trailers were released on 16 October 2006. Wright, Pegg, and Frost maintained several
video blogs
A video blog or video log, sometimes shortened to vlog (), is a form of blog for which the medium is video. Vlog entries often combine embedded video (or a video link) with supporting text, images, and other metadata. Entries can be recorded i ...
, which were released at various times throughout the production of the film.
Wright and Frost held a panel at the 2006
Comic-Con
A comic book convention or comic-con is an event with a primary focus on comic books and comic book culture, in which comic book Fan (person), fans gather to meet creators, experts, and each other. Commonly, comic conventions are multi-day events ...
convention in
San Diego
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...
,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
to promote ''Hot Fuzz'', which included preliminary footage and a question and answer session.
The two returned to the convention again in 2007 to promote the US DVD release.
Advance screenings of the film took place on 14 February 2007 in the UK and the
world premiere
A première, also spelled premiere, is the debut (first public presentation) of a play, film, dance, or musical composition.
A work will often have many premières: a world première (the first time it is shown anywhere in the world), its firs ...
was on 16 February 2007. The premiere included escorts from motorcycle police officers and the use of blue carpet instead of the traditional
red carpet
A red carpet is traditionally used to mark the route taken by heads of state on ceremonial and formal occasions, and has in recent decades been extended to use by VIPs and celebrities at formal events.
History
The earliest known reference ...
.
Release
Critical reception
''Hot Fuzz'' received critical acclaim. The
review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...
website
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
reported a 91% approval rating with an average rating of 7.70/10 based on 204 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "The brilliant minds behind ''
Shaun of the Dead
''Shaun of the Dead'' is a 2004 zombie comedy film directed by Edgar Wright and written by Wright and Simon Pegg. Pegg stars as Shaun, a downtrodden salesman in London who is caught in a zombie apocalypse with his friend Ed ( Nick Frost). The ...
'' successfully take a shot at the buddy cop genre with ''Hot Fuzz''. The result is a bitingly satiric and hugely entertaining parody." It has a
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
score of 81 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
Olly Richards of ''
Empire
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
'' praised the chemistry between Pegg and Frost, saying: "After almost a decade together, they're clearly so comfortable in each other's presence that they feel no need to fight for the punchline, making them terrific company for two hours".
Philip French of ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...
'', who did not care for ''Shaun of the Dead'', warmed to the comedy team in this film.
The film also received positive reviews in the United States.
Derek Elley
Derek Elley (born c. 1955) is an American film and music critic and author, best known as the resident film critic for ''Variety'' until his departure in March 2010. With over 1200 reviews to his credit as of December 2014 on ''Rotten Tomatoes'', h ...
of ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' praised Broadbent and Dalton as "especially good as Angel's
hail-fellow-well-met superior and oily No. 1 suspect".
As an homage to the genre, the film was well received by
screenwriter
A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based.
...
Shane Black
Shane Black (born December 16, 1961) is an American filmmaker and actor who has written such films as ''Lethal Weapon'', ''The Monster Squad'', ''The Last Boy Scout'', ''Last Action Hero'', and ''The Long Kiss Goodnight''. As an actor, Black is ...
.
Despite being mostly praised, not all reviews were positive. ''
The Daily Mirror
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'' gave ''Hot Fuzz'' only 2/5, stating that "many of the jokes miss their target" as the film becomes more action-based.
Anthony Quinn of ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'' said, "The same impish spirit
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In 2016, ''Empire (film magazine)">Empire
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
'' magazine ranked ''Hot Fuzz'' 50th on their list of the 100 best British films, with their entry stating, “the second in their planned trilogy again nails the genre clichés, with everything from ''
'' (both openly referenced) humorously homaged. Pegg's natural chemistry with long-time real-life pal Frost remains endearing as ever. Elsewhere, the ''Scooby-Doo''-meets-''Scream (1996 film), Scream'' mystery is peppered with Britain's finest talent, playing up the English small-town clichés to great effect in a brilliantly incongruous meeting of sleepy rural life and stabby violent action.”
The film generated £7.1 million in its first weekend of release in the United Kingdom on 14 February 2007.
In 20 April US opening weekend, the film grossed $5.8 million from only 825 cinemas, making it the highest per-cinema average of any film in the top ten that week.
Its opening weekend take beat the $3.3 million opening weekend gross of Pegg and Wright's previous film, ''Shaun of the Dead''. In its second weekend of release,
expanded the film's cinema count from 825 to 1,272 and it grossed $4.9 million, representing a 17% dip in the gross.
Altogether, ''Hot Fuzz'' grossed $80,573,774 worldwide.
In nine weeks, the film earned nearly twice what ''Shaun of the Dead'' made in the US, and more than three times its gross in other countries.
was released on 11 June 2007 in the UK. Over one million DVDs were sold in the UK in the first four weeks of its release.
. The DVD also features Wright's last amateur film, ''Dead Right'', which he described as "''Hot Fuzz'' without the budget". Due to the above release date, the film arrived on region 2 DVD earlier than the theatrical release date in Germany on 14 June 2007.
, they discuss nearly 200 films.
release was on 31 July 2007. It opened at #2 at the American DVD sales chart, selling 853,000 units for over $14m in revenue. 1,923,000 units have been sold, acquiring revenue of $33.3 million.
The HD DVD edition has more special features than the standard DVD release. A three-disc collector's edition was released on 27 November 2007 and a
edition on 22 September 2009.
The soundtrack album, ''Hot Fuzz: Music from the Motion Picture'', was released on 19 February 2007 in the United Kingdom, and on 17 April 2007 in the United States and Canada. The UK release contains 22 tracks, and the North American release has 14. The film's score is by British composer
from 1997 to 2008. The soundtrack album's "Hot Fuzz Suite" is a compilation of excerpts from Arnold's score.
According to the DVD commentary, the scenes where Nicholas Angel is at a convenience store, while leaving Sandford, and his return to the police station while arming for the final shootout (found in the track "Avenging Angel"), were scored by
, who did not see the rest of the film while writing the music.
Other music from the film is a mix of 1960s and 1970s
).
The soundtrack album features dialogue extracts by Pegg, Frost, and other cast members, mostly embedded in the music tracks.
" as well as "Here Come the Fuzz", which was specially composed for the film by
.