Simon Pegg Starring In Psycho Comedy 'A Fantastic Fear Of Everything'

The latest project to star Simon Pegg isn't Star Trek 2. It is A Fantastic Fear of Everything, but don't just label it as a comedy. It is a 'psycho comedy,' according to the trade report on the project. What does that mean? The central character, to be played by Mr. Pegg, is "a children's author turned crime novelist whose research into the lives of Victorian serial killers turns him into a paranoid wreck, especially when a Hollywood executive decides he wants to make a film out of his findings."

We've got a more extensive synopsis after the break.

Screen Daily broke the news of the casting, which Simon Pegg has been teasing via Twitter for some time. He said of the script not long ago, when the project was still a mystery, "It's this really odd but brilliant script...it's just a little low-budget British film but I'm very excited about it."

The film will be co-directed by video director Chris Hopewell (Radiohead, The Killers) and Crispian Mills, aka Kula Shaker's frontman. The Playlist found this long recap of the story on the website of production company Keel Films:

Jack is alone for Christmas. A former children's author, now turned crime novelist, Jack spends his nights pacing about, entrenched in his latest script 'Decades of Death' with only his gruesome research into Victorian serial killers for company.

A sensitive artist, who lacks even the simple courage to buy his own toilet paper, this research into all the most notorious hackers and poisoners of the late 19th century has made him paranoid and insomniac. Jack starts carrying a carving knife around with him due to 'an irrational fear of being murdered' and begins to suspect everybody he meets, from the waiter in the restaurant, to the newspaper vendor, to the friendly local ASBO hoodies. But when Jack is thrown a life-line by his long-suffering agent and a mysterious Hollywood executive takes a sudden and inexplicable interest in his script, what should be his 'big break' rapidly turns into his 'big breakdown', as Jack is forced to confront his worst fears; among them, love, laundry, and, serial killers.

It's because of his agent's unprecedented request that he 'look smart' for the big meeting, that Jack's career now rests precariously on his ability to tackle his irrational fear of launderettes. However, Jack soon has to deal with far more than the simple embarrassment of exposing his own soiled load in public. Harangued by the ghost of his ex-wife, and guided by the sage-like counsel of his psychotherapist (who once cured a girl of her phobia of open bananas), Jack makes his fateful 'trip downtown', taking him through the shadowy dystopia of a modern Noir London and onto the bright neon lights of the Lotus Laundromat, where his inability to operate a washing machine, (and the unfortunate fact that he's still carrying a carving knife), triggers a series of unexpected events bringing him face to face with real danger, real crime, real fear, and even reality TV; involving an encounter with the most beautiful girl in London, a highly embarrassing personal injury, a bruising encounter with the strong arm of the law, and ultimately an unexpected fight for his life at the hands of a real serial killer...