Edgar Wright

Watch the Edgar Wright film’s opening chase side-by-side with a map of the city to see how accurate -- or how fictional -- Baby’s route is.

Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver is already the director’s most successful film to date, with a $76 million worldwide take so far on a budget of $34 million. But the movie has yet to open in a bunch of countries, including Germany, Brazil, Japan, and more (it only just had its Australian premiere, courtesy of George Miller). So, to get more bods in theater seats, Universal has released the entire opening bank heist and car chase scene from the movie on YouTube. Even if you’ve already seen the movie, you gotta watch this again. And turn your volume up.

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It wasn’t so long ago that Edgar Wright voiced some misgivings about the business of sequels, saying “I guess I would rather be telling new stories than revisiting old ones.” But in that very same interview, he emphasized that he has no hard-and-fast rules for how he chooses projects, and that if reviving an established property felt natural and creatively productive, he wouldn’t rule out the possibility. He batted around the idea of following up on cop-parody Hot Fuzz back then, and now today, he’s reignited fan murmurs of an entry into sequeldom with Baby Driver.

You know an Edgar Wright film when you see one, even if Simon Pegg isn’t nearby — the distinctive (and often heartfelt) sense of humor, the impressive editing, the momentum, and the predictably awesome soundtrack, all working in time to deliver a film that’s remarkably poignant for such a well-oiled machine. Baby Driver might not be quite what you’re expecting from the director of Scott Pilgrim and Shaun of the Dead, and yet it’s entirely what you’re hoping to see. Despite some of its unexpected qualities and low-key visual style, it is perhaps the most Edgar Wright film to date.

Think you know the first part of Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy? Test your knowledge with the latest installment of You Think You Know Movies!

Wright’s long-awaited follow-up to The World’s End stars Ansel Elgort as a talented getaway driver who relies on the beat of his personal soundtrack to enhance his skills. Inspired by heist films like Point Break and The Driver (obviously), Baby Driver is not a musical in the conventional sense, but one in which the action (like its titular character, whose name really is Baby) is driven by diegetic sound — in this case, it’s music. I spoke with Wright about all of this and much more during his recent trip to Austin, where he was the surprise guest at a special screening to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Alamo Drafthouse, a theater that holds a very special place in his heart. Our 10-minute interview quickly morphed into 20 because, as Wright himself would tell you, the man can talk.

This is kind of a necessary evil of the film criticism industry: now that Edgar Wright has a new movie in theaters  —  Baby Driver is really fun! You should go see it!  —  it was only a matter of time before someone asked the director for clarification on his decision to leave Marvel’s Ant-Man. In hindsight, Wright was always something of an odd choice for a Marvel movie. A visionary and idiosyncratic filmmaker, Wright was probably always a bad meeting away from the fabled “creative differences” dissolution, and when he left the project in 2014, fans were upset but not exactly surprised. Therefore, someone was always going to ask Wright during a Baby Driver interview to explain his decision to leave the film.

Edgar Wright’s action movie pseudo-musical Baby Driver has perhaps one of the best movie soundtracks in recent memory, with a script effectively built around the music itself. Which is why a remix from one such as accomplished DJ Mike Relm is only appropriate.

Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver is going to be like nothing you’ve ever seen or heard before. Not only does it have a stellar soundtrack, the movie itself was built around its own music. Car doors slamming, keys turning, guns firing all had to be precisely timed to fit with whatever song would be playing over the action once the film was all cut together, and a new featurette explains just how complicated that was to do.