Edgar Wright has spent decades making some of the most inventive movies ever put on screen, but long before Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz made him a household name, he was already flexing that creative muscle. Alongside some of Britain’s finest comedic talent, Wright helped create one of British television’s most beloved cult comedies, a series that remains enormously influential more than 25 years after its debut, but there’s been a development with the series, and it’s fair to say he is not happy.
Wright has officially condemned an unauthorized AI-assisted restoration of Spaced, revealing that he and the show’s creative team were not consulted about its upcoming 4K-remastered Blu-ray release. The new collection, scheduled for February 9, 2027, has been advertised as an “upgraded” version of the Channel 4 sitcom, but with algorithmic processing and AI-assisted upscaling, and it’s clear to see that Wright is seething about it. He took his social media platforms to express his dismay.
“Finding out about this on for the first time is… disheartening. I had been pushing to do a Blu-Ray of SPACED for years, so to find out that someone just went ahead without our involvement is…. a bummer. Not authorized by anyone involved in making the show. Finding out what happened as we speak…”
“Finding out about this on for the first time is… disheartening. I had been pushing to do a Blu-Ray of SPACED for years, so to find out that someone just went ahead without our involvement is…. a bummer. Not authorized by anyone involved in making the show. Finding out what happened as we speak…”
What makes it worse is that Wright subsequently explained that he had been pushing for a new release for approximately six years, adding that the creative team had been closely involved with previous home entertainment editions.
- The Wachowskis’ 1999 film won four Academy Awards, including Visual Effects and Film
Editing. - Bullet time was shot with a rig of roughly 120 still cameras firing in sequence around the
actors. - Keanu Reeves trained in martial arts for about four months before a frame was shot,
recovering from neck surgery the whole time. - It opened the same year as Fight Club and eXistenZ, in a run of films about not trusting the
world in front of you.
- Mad Max: Fury Road won six Academy Awards in 2016, more than any other film that year.
- George Miller storyboarded the entire film as roughly 3,500 panels before there was a
script. - The chase was shot almost entirely practical in the Namib Desert, with real vehicles and
real stunt performers. - Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth carried the prequel, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, in 2024.
- Blade Runner 2049 won Roger Deakins his first Oscar for cinematography, on his fourteenth
nomination. - The film also took Best Visual Effects, 35 years after Ridley Scott’s 1982 original.
- Villeneuve shot it on large-format film and kept the fog and rain practical on set wherever
he could. - Three short films by Luke Scott and Shinichiro Watanabe bridge the 30-year gap between the
two movies.
- Denis Villeneuve’s Dune won six Academy Awards in 2022, including Cinematography and
Original Score. - Hans Zimmer turned down Christopher Nolan’s Tenet so he could score Dune instead.
- Dune: Part Two arrived in 2024 and brought in Austin Butler, Florence Pugh and Christopher
Walken. - David Lynch’s 1984 version and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s unmade one are both their
own legends by now.
- The 1977 original won six Academy Awards plus a special achievement award for sound effects.
- John Williams’ score was recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra and became the
best-selling symphonic film soundtrack ever. - Andor took the galaxy somewhere colder and earned Emmy nominations for drama series in both
seasons. - The saga now runs across eleven feature films and a growing shelf of series on Disney+.
Why Is Edgar Wright Unhappy About the New ‘Spaced’ Restoration?
The big issue stems from exactly how the series is being “upgraded”, because the promotional materials have described a 4K master that’s been crafted using not just traditional restoration techniques but also “algorithmic corrections”, or to be more simple about it, by using AI. But Wright’s biggest issue? Nobody bothered to ask him about it.
“It’s a Channel 4 show. We were all very involved in the previous editions, but not this one. Don’t know. Finding out.”
</blockquote>“It’s a Channel 4 show. We were all very involved in the previous editions, but not this one. Don’t know. Finding out.”
The cast of Spaced includes Simon Pegg (Mission: Impossible) as Tim Bisley, Jessica Hynes (Shaun of the Dead) as Daisy Steiner, Nick Frost (Hot Fuzz) as Mike Watt, Julia Deakin (Hot Fuzz) as Marsha Klein, Mark Heap (Green Wing) as Brian Topp, Katy Carmichael (Coronation Street) as Twist Morgan, Michael Smiley (Kill List) as Tyres O’Flaherty, and Peter Serafinowicz (Guardians of the Galaxy) as Duane Benzie.
The new Spaced Blu-ray collection is scheduled for February 9, 2027. Wright has made clear that the restoration was produced without the original creative team’s involvement.
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Jessica Hynes
Daisy Steiner
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Julia Deakin
Marsha Klein
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