FILM stars Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Martin Freeman are in Welwyn Garden City town centre today (Thursday) shooting scenes for new movie The World’s End.

Following a pre-shoot in WGC last month, cast and crew members were in town again this afternoon (Thursday) to film further scenes for the third episode in Pegg and Edgar Wright’s so-called Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy.

Directed by Wright, the movie follows the pair’s box-office hits Shaun of the Dead in 2004, and 2007’s Hot Fuzz, which was also partly shot in WGC, at the Barn Theatre.

The World’s End stars Pegg as Gary King, who meets up with four childhood friends and gets his reluctant pals to re-attempt a marathon pub crawl through their hometown.

Pegg, Frost and The Office’s Freeman, along with co-stars Paddy Considine and Eddie Marsan, were seen in Howardsgate filming the same scene over and over again today.

Watched by hundreds of shoppers and schoolchildren, Pegg, wearing dark glasses and a black Sisters of Mercy T-shirt under a long dark coat while smoking a cigarette, leads the gang across Howardsgate, from near Superdrug in the direction of Wigmores North and the Welwyn Hatfield Times’ former offices.

Pegg’s character then turns to his mates and seems to egg them on. Frost is wearing a cream coloured overcoat and pink shirt, while Freeman – soon to be seen in Peter Jackson’s big budget version of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit – is wearing a blue suit, blue shirt and blue tie.

The location has been transformed for the shoot, with a huge statue erected in the middle of the Howardsgate green, while rubbish bins have been obscured from view.

While this scene was being repeatedly shot, other members of the film crew were setting up outside The Cork pub nearby.

The Howardsgate pub has been renamed The Famous Cock for the film, while The Parkway Tavern, in Parkway, has become The Cross Hands.

The Doctors Tonic, in Church Road, was called the The Old Familiar for the pre-shoot in September, while The Peartree in Woodhall Lane was transformed into The First Post.

Early promotional posters for the film suggest that these will be the first four pubs the friends visit on their epic pub crawl in the movie.

The film, which also stars former Bond girl Rosamund Pike, is provisionally due for release in August next year.

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