The Music Video that Inspired 'Baby Driver'

In 2002, after Edgar Wright directed cult favourite TV show Spaced but before he became the wunderkind behind Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and more, he had an idea for a film about a getaway driver who timed his getaways to his favourite rock tracks. 15 years later, this would become Baby Driver, one of this year's best and most acclaimed films. In 2002, however, the idea became a music video for Mint Royale track Blue Song.

In an interview with NME, Wright called the music video, which stars Spaced and Shaun of the Dead star Nick Frost alongside Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt of The Mighty Boosh, 'basically a dry run for this movie [Baby Driver].'

In the video, the driver (Fielding) asks the team how long the job will take.

  "two and a half minutes" one of them says.

  "could you be more specific" asks Fielding.

  "two minuted 54" one of them replies.

He then selects an appropriate song from his CD carry case (remember those?), with the rest of the video being an improvised dance routine by the driver as he waits for the gang to get back in the car.

This would eventually form the opening scene of Baby Driver, in which Baby (Ansel Elgort) jams to John Spencer Blues Explosion track Bellbottoms while his crew robs a bank.

Fittingly, it was this song that gave Edgar Wright the idea for both Baby Driver and the Blue Song video. Wright said of this song at this year's SXSW, “the first track on the album...is a fantastic rock track, I just listened to that song over and over again...I don’t know what it was, but I just thought that would make a great car chase song.”

However, he would then take the initial idea of (to quote Indiewire), 'a getaway driver for a bank heist, who cannot do his job properly without the right music playing' and turn it into the Blue Song video, a move Wright regretted for some time. “At the time, I was annoyed at myself for doing it, because I shouldn’t waste this idea on a music video.” However, with that idea now at the heart of Baby Driver, a film with a 97% 'Fresh' rating on Rotten Tomatoes sitting at #2 on the UK Box Office and #3 in the US, the idea has truly gone into fifth gear.