After wrapping his shoot on the Untitled Star Trek Sequel and preparing for The World's End with Nick Frost (Paul) and Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz), Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead) will topline Hector and the Search for Happiness for director Peter Chelsom (Serendipity).  The dramatic comedy is an adaptation by Chelsom and Tinker Lindsay of the best-selling Francois Lelord novel.  Hector and the Search for Happiness is currently in pre-production with plans to start once Pegg finishes The World's End this fall.  Hit the jump for the synopsis and more.Here's a bit of the synopsis from the press release highlighting Pegg's character:

Pegg plays Hector, an eccentric yet irresistible London psychiatrist in crisis: his patients are just not getting any happier! He’s going nowhere. Then one day, armed with buckets of courage and an almost child-like curiosity, Hector breaks out of his sheltered vacuum of a life into a global quest to find out if happiness exists. More importantly, if it exists for Hector. And so begins a colorful, exotic, dangerous and hysterical journey.

You can also find Pegg in A Fantastic Fear of Everything opening June 8th in the UK and in the pilot for Frank Darabont's new TV series, L.A. Noir. Fore more on the Lelord novel Hector and the Search for Happiness, the book description follows below (via Amazon):

Hector is a young psychiatrist in Paris who does not understand why his patients in this most beautiful of cities are unhappy. So he decides to take a trip around the world--from Paris to China to Africa to the United States--and to keep a list of observations about the people he meets, hoping to find the secret to happiness.

Combining the winsome appeal of The Little Prince with the inspiring philosophy of The Alchemist, Hector's journey around the world and into the human soul is entertaining, empowering, and smile inducing--as winning in its optimism as it is wise in its simplicity.

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