The film was developed from an episode of Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's sitcom "Spaced". The episode, "Art", which was written by Pegg (along with his writing partner and co-star Jessica Stevenson) and directed by Wright, features the character of Tim (Pegg), under the influence of amphetamine and playing the video game "Resident Evil 2", hallucinating that he is fighting off a zombie invasion. Knowing they had a mutual appreciation for George A. Romero's "Dead" trilogy, Pegg and Wright decided to write their own zombie movie. The pair pitched the film to Film4, who took it on until their production budget got cut back. Wright was still invested in production and refused to take television directing jobs until "Shaun of the Dead" got made, as he would have been pushing it back, which left him in some debt for a while. Other companies passed on it, according to Wright, "because they weren't sure what the tone was and said it wasn't all that scary and not that funny. They didn't get it". After eighteen months, Working Title Films picked it up, which Wright felt was somewhat ironic as the film mocks the classic British rom-coms that Working Title usually makes. The film had been conceived of in late 1999, and was announced at Cannes Film Festival in 2002.