It was great to see KICK-ASS 2 get made, even without Matthew Vaughn in the director’s chair, but the film’s lackluster reception (and lame domestic grosses), matched with Chloe Moretz’ rapidly advancing age, made it seem like any more Dave Lizewski/Mindy McCready adventures were out of the question. Mark Millar (who did write a follow-up, KICK-ASS 3) has mentioned that plans were on the table for another cinematic go-around, but he’s one of those dudes who says stuff that doesn’t always pan out, and it was easy to assume it was just wishful thinking on his part.
But then Vaughn comes forward with quotes like this that throw the whole thing into question:
”I’m not happily done with the franchise, for sure. KICK-ASS is a very important film to me, I’m very proud of it. We would like to dip our toe back into it, and when I say we, Mark and I and the team. We’re working on an idea of, ‘How did Hit-Girl and Big Daddy become Hit-Girl and Big Daddy?’ It’s quite a fun idea we’ve come up with. If we make that, hopefully it’ll be the sorbet for people who didn’t like KICK-ASS 2. Then, we can go off and make KICK-ASS 3. I think we gotta do this prequel just to regain the love that we had with KICK-ASS.”
Vaughn self-financed the first films himself, going as far to host a sort of fundraiser (with folks like Brad PItt) to amass the $30-million-or-so budget for the original. If he sees the model working out for him, then it makes sense that he’ll keep going forward, especially considering the creative freedom his financial situation and Millar’s participation affords him. It’s clear that he feels that his absence from KICK-ASS 2 (necessitated by his work on X-MEN: FIRST CLASS) hurt the franchise, in some way, so whatever KICK-ASS film(s) we see in the future will most likely start out with “A Matthew Vaughn Film” rather than, “A Matthew Vaughn Production.”
I don’t care if Chloe Moretz is a legal adult (which makes the idea of a prequel featuring her as a pre-teen Hit-Girl...problematic), and that Aaron Taylor-Johnson is a married 25-year-old with experience as an AVENGER: I wanna see more of Matthew Vaughn’s KICK-ASS. The action beats and occasionally pitch-black comedy of the original still make me smile wider than any bigger-budget comic flick made in the interim (KINGSMAN included), and if he knows a way to make further installments financially viable, then color me a happy fan.
Do you guys have faith in Vaughn to get these made, or do you not even care enough about the franchise for it to matter?
