The How To Train Your Dragon Remake Has A Mini Shaun Of The Dead Reunion You May Have Missed

The world of cinema is both remarkably expansive and amusingly small all at once. To wit: While there are new and unique filmmakers emerging onto the scene with each passing year, the way that the business of show has operated since its inception has been to lure audiences into a new film by way of familiar faces. In some cases, movie stars are intentionally interested in working with each other over and over. However, in other cases, the stars of one film will find themselves sharing the screen with an old castmate of theirs. This might be because a film's casting director liked the way two (or more) people looked on screen together before ... or it might be total happenstance.

Whatever the case was when it came to the casting of Nick Frost and Peter Serafinowicz in the live-action remake of "How to Train Your Dragon," it just so happens that this is not the first time the pair of them have appeared on screen together. Most famously, the two actors appeared as roommates and enemies (both in human and in zombie form) in 2004's "Shaun of the Dead." While both men play Vikings from the island of Berk in the forms of Gobber the Belch (Frost) and Spitelout Jorgenson (Serafinowicz), you'd be forgiven if you didn't notice them at all, let alone their mini-"Shaun" reunion. The duo has been styled to be somewhat unrecognizable in their Viking accoutrements, and director Dean DeBlois seems to have made a point of never including Frost and Serafinowicz in the same shot. So, no need to feel ashamed if you're a "Shaun of the Dead" fan who missed it!

There's a legitimate possibility that both Frost and Serafinowicz were cast in "How to Train Your Dragon" due to them being separate UK comedy legends in their own right, nevermind the "Shaun of the Dead" connection. Both men have enjoyed lengthy careers appearing in various film and television projects (most of them comedic, and some not!). Where Frost has turned up in "Black Books," "Phineas and Ferb," "Doctor Who," "Tomb Raider," and "Fighting With My Family," Serafinowicz was famously the voice of Darth Maul in "Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace" and has appeared in "I'm Alan Partridge," "South Park," "Rick and Morty," "Guardians of the Galaxy," and "John Wick: Chapter 2," just to name a few entries in each man's long list of impressive credits. "Dragon" is also not the first fantasy film either actor has been in, as Frost has shown up in "Snow White and the Huntsman" and "The Huntsman: Winter's War," while Serafinowicz has voiced characters in "His Dark Materials" and this year's "Wolf King."

Thanks to both men coming up in the 1990s as part of the British comedy scene, they've crossed paths on screen numerous times before and after "Shaun." The duo first appeared together, along with "Shaun" stars Simon Pegg, Jessica Stevenson, and director Edgar Wright, in the BBC TV comedy "Spaced" in 1999. In 2002, Frost and Serafinowicz next appeared in a fantasy comedy radio drama produced for BBC Radio 4 titled "The Sofa of Time," which Frost co-wrote with Matt King. After "Shaun," the two actors collaborated in a few episodes of co-creator Serafinowicz's mock educational program "Look Around You," and both participated in Wright's mock trailer for "Don't!" as part of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's "Grindhouse" venture. Since then, the two seemingly haven't been in the same project until "How to Train Your Dragon," which makes the occasion a bit more momentous than it would've been in the '00s.

Although Gobber and Spitelout don't really get to share a moment together in "How to Train Your Dragon," there's no doubt that there were times when Frost and Serafinowicz were on set together, so at least they must've enjoyed their reunion off-screen if not on-screen. Hopefully, this experience might inspire them to not only share some scenes in the already-planned live-action "How to Train Your Dragon" sequel but to also perhaps seek out projects to work together on again.

Might one of these projects be a proper "Shaun of the Dead" reunion? Sure, both Wright and Pegg have publicly spoken about how none of their Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy films will receive a direct sequel or reboot, but no one's rejected the idea of a neat little reunion special, either. Maybe we won't need a full-on "Friends: The Reunion" for "Shaun" if Wright and Pegg end up making the mysterious new film they've been hinting at for ages (and are now eager to start writing) — one which brings about a reunion of the actors involved in "Shaun," if not the characters. After all, it used to be a hallmark of Wright's projects to include his former collaborators in his films, and Frost and Pegg did turn up as thinly-veiled versions of their "Hot Fuzz" characters in the animated spin-off series to one of Wright's movies, "Scott Pilgrim Takes Off."

So, when it comes to an actual "Shaun of the Dead" reunion, perhaps we should never say never. For now, we'll just have to wonder whether Gobber plays his music too loud and whether Spitelout gets a splitting headache because of it.

"How to Train Your Dragon" is now playing in theaters.