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EXCLUSIVE: Universal Pictures is in talks to make Kick-Ass 2, with Jeff Wadlow directing his script. I’m told the intention is to get the film in production by August. Discussions are just getting underway with such original castmembers as Aaron Johnson, Chloe Moretz and Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and they will have to be signed to new deals to reprise their roles. The raucous 2010 film was directed by Matthew Vaughn; it was made for $28 million and grossed $48.1 million domestic and $103 million worldwide. The original was released by Lionsgate but became a free ball controlled by Vaughn. He can’t direct the sequel because of his commitments to his X-Men: First Class follow-up, but he is backing it and is fully supportive of handing over the reins. Wadlow, who wrote and directed 2005′s Cry Wolf, wrote the Kick-Ass 2 script for Vaughn, and it has already come before Universal’s green-light committee. I expect a deal to be closed shortly. Wadlow is repped by WME.
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It may not have had the biggest success on the big screen but the fight scenes are Youtube favourites and I have to believe enough people have seen the whole movie by now and are at least curious about what became of Hit Girl. The bottom line; there is a bonafide audience now so why not
It made money in the movies with basically zero advertising, but it really built an audience after it was released on DVD, pay-per-view, Netflix and cable. It’s still building. I know two women, one a single 20-something, and the other a 40-something Mom, who both just watched Kick Ass in the last couple of months, having never even heard of it, and each had the same reaction: Hit Girl was great, and please tell me they’re planning Kick Ass II! Neither were part of the original target audience, but both would go see Kick Ass II.
Kick Ass II will never be an Avengers-like mega-blockbuster (few are), but it can be a big-time $250+ million money maker worldwide second time around. It’ll have to be since the cast will be more expensive, with the production and advertising more costly.
Chloe Moretz will be a key sign. She’ll have to morph to a teen version of Hit Girl, and I don’t think the fan boys of the comic will have a problem with that change. Kick Ass without Miss Moretz just won’t fly. This is a character she can own from childhood to adulthood, and I’m sure the comic book’s author, Mark Miller, already is scheming on how to do it!
“zero advertising” are you crazy?? Lionsgate had a HUGE marketing spend for this film, both television and outdoor were insane. My two kids, both under five, wanted to see the movie based on the colorful and fun campaign.
I’m with the guy above. I go to movies reguarly and I never heard of Kick Ass until it was released on video.
I’m sure it had promotion, but it really takes a lot to cut through the clutter. I’m sure they hit their target audience, but weren’t able to expand much beyond that, at least not enough to make an impression. It won’t have that problem with a sequel.
They should give this “franchise” a no-go. The movie was very disjointed and tried to pass itself off as cool but turned out lacking humor and any sense of authenticity.
There are just too many good potential stories and projects out there that need to be looked into that this doesn’t require a second go-around.
@Zach: you’re an idiot. The people liked it. It got great reviews. It deserves a sequel.
With all the pre-release hype and publicity Kick-Ass received (LGF spent a TON on it), it should’ve soared at the box office.
Instead, it stalled at 48 million domestic. Audiences got a taste and they spit it out.
Don’t mistake geek good will for mass audience approval, Dragunov.
A sequel will likely do even less business.
Whoah!!!! Slow down there poncho. There’s a couple of crucial facts you failed to mention.
It had a budget of around $30 million. Grossed $48 million domestically, but went on to gross another $48 million worldwide. So it grossed a total of nearly $100 million. Hardly a flop for a little known superhero, not related to any Marvel or DC universe.
Domestic grosses are not considered the end result of a film these days. Believe it or not, most countries outside of the U.S. have movie theaters.
Yeah, but they spent $40 million advertising the damn thing…
It flopped dude. Go get another hot pocket and sit down.
Rocket in My Pocket, the movie industry plays funny games with what they term marketing and promotion, which includes advertising. That’s why very few movies supposedly make money. Oh they do make money, but the studios claim so many expenses that the financial books make it appear even the most successful movies barely break even. It’s a game. Big stars used to ask for a percent of the profits and for years couldn’t figure out why they were getting nothing. The studios screwed them, so now many ask for a percentage of the actual gate.
The $40 million plus(it was actually $50 million) on marketing includes the acquisition cost they had to pay for the film. In the end it was a profitable movie, and then scored big when it hit DVD/Blu-Ray. In fact, in the first two weeks in made more money than the entire film cost to produce, and it’s been generating millions since. That’s the point when Lionsgate wanted to cut another deal with Matthew Vaughn on the sequel, but he was off on X-Men.
A movie that grossed over $100M in theatres before DVD and PPV sales, generated millions in profits, and is now headed to a sequel is not considered a flop. Just the opposite, which is why Universal wants to do the deal.
dude did you see the advertising for the movie? it was so dumb. they advertised that movie like you would toy story 3.
the movie flopped but has a huge audience. lots of movie flopped and went on to get a cult following dosent mean part 2 cant make money
plus moretez is a huge draw.
Uh, haters, it made close to 100 million world wide…..and, lest you forget, it DOUBLED that in DVD sales.
Sounds like a 200 million dollar take on a 30 million dollar production.
Somehow, the audiences didn’t “spit it out”, nor did it “flop”.
The haters need to get their statistics straight, or shut the pie holes!
I agree — movie was just hype. I wanted to personally kick the ass of Kick Ass the entire film. He whined, he wasn’t funny, and he ate up too much screen time from the Nic Cage storyline.
In fact, I don’t even remember how the movie ended… but if he didn’t die, he should in the first 10 seconds of the sequel. And so should the kid from Super Bad.
Yiu are so full of crap. This is by far the best superheroes movie to this date. It is funny, brutally cruel and very raw. This is what happens to real heroes. Most of them die. That’s the beauty of Kick-Ass, a dream for comic fans and a nightmare for vigilantes.
Yep, “real” (super)heroes. ‘Nuff said.
That said, Wadlow’s script is pretty good.
Guess Universal wants to blow some dough while waiting for Orci/Kurtzman to mangle The Mummy. First movie stank, let it go.
We need a Kickass sequel like we need a Scott Pilgrim trilogy.
You have no taste.
Langley’s grasping at straws…
I couldn’t dissagree more, a sequel to Kick-Ass would be epic
I do agree there are other films that need sequels but Kick-Ass is definately one of them
This movie made almost $97 million in theaters worldwide, and more than tripled it in DVD and Blu-Ray sales. Get your facts right. Kick-Ass was an amazing movie and yes, it has developed a cult following, but this movie is universal. It’s saying anybody can make a difference if they just do something, plus it was really violent and absolutely hilarious!
Excellent news.
Wasn’t Wadlow’s Never Back Down a much bigger film than Cry Wolf. Or was that just the mentioned film because he wrote and directed it rather than just directing? I’ve seen both. Not bad. Hopefully the script he and Vaughn worked on is as inspired as the original. I love those characters and Johnston and Moretz are both tomorrow’s biggest stars imo.
Not bad? Both those movies are direct-to-dvd quality. I just can’t believe they couldn’t find a talented director to do this, hell even an average one at this point.
Because they are making this ON THE CHEAP.
Having said that, I enjoyed both Cry Wolf and Never Back Down.
s
my point exactly. Both are straight to DVD style movies but surprisingly watchable for what they are. I have a feeling based on smarts/charisma etc. of writer/director Wadlow, they think he’s a director on the rise who has directed a movie with some action/fighting. Hopefully the straight to DVD feel of his first two movies doesn’t scare Chloe Moretz and Aaron Johnson away from the project. It’s just not worth making without them…. although studios love a bullshit franchise title which is what they are paying for. Hopefully we actually get a good sequel and not strictly a way for them to squeak out more profit from the title.
Please god YES!
So excited!
Poor Uni. They have no superhero IP, and this is the best they can scrounge up. Bottom of the barrel studio.
Not true. They do have Hellboy – that is IF they ever get around to making a third one. Plus, Mike Richardson, publisher of Dark Horse has a stake of bringing other DH properties to the fold.
Ugh. Won’t be nearly as good as the original without Matt Vaughn directing.
Was the first one any good?
I don’t think anyone’s gonna miss Vaughn on set or on the screen…except, of course, Vaughn himself.
Excellent news! This film should have made much more domestically than it actually did.
I have to think the script is actually good. Wadlow has had two pilots shot in the last two years, and wrote BLOODSHOT for Sony that is really well done. And as a director, NEVER BACK DOWN had some great action. Good for him.
I LOVED the original. Favorite movie of the year after The Social Network. But I also saw Cry Wolf, and it was junk. Borderline incompetent filmmaking. Please don’t make a Jeff Wadlow Kick-Ass! I don’t want to see this unless Vaughn is behind it.
Whatever haters. Wadlow is a promising new director as Vaughn was once too. So stoked for this!
The original is 2-3 years old already. Had it been so great/successful, they would have lined up a sequel immediately. The fact that they’ve only recently decided to make it a “franchise” is pretty strong evidence that Hollywood would rather churn out sequels to halfway decent movies than looking for the next big thing.
Note to all (wannabe) screenwriters…. stop typing, you’re wasting your time.
Most movies don’t get sequels until 2 or 3 years later genius…
I think they should wait a couple of year until Aaron Johnson and Chloe Moretz are older before we get to see them in action again but I guess they can do that anyway, but I think it would be more interesting to see an adult hit-girl in comparison to an adolescent one oh well I’ll still go see it
Agree with Jeremy. I worked with Jeff for many years and he is one of the most talented, hard working young director/writers out there today AND working in both features and television. Wadlow will knock this out of the park. Good for him and for his team at WME Congrats JW! -
I remember this and Scott Pilgrim tanked the same year. So much for the hipster take on super heroes. That said I did enjoy Kick-Ass.
The reason why Kick Ass underperformed is that Lionsgate wanted 100% of the box office for the opening weekend. Carmike Cinemas theater chain declined & never screened the film. Costing the film thousands of screens. I was pissed because the only theaters around me are Carmike. Thankfully a screener was uploaded online shortly after & When the blu came out I bought it day one.
“Carmike Cinemas theater chain declined & never screened the film. Costing the film thousands of screens.”
Kick-Ass opened on 3,065 screens. No shortage of screens.
I loved Kick-Ass. Easily one of my favorite movies. More Hit-Girl please!
I really enjoyed Kick-Ass in 2010. It was probably the most entertaining movie that year and the best summer flick after Inception. Too bad, it didn’t find its audience. I heard that it did really well on DVD and Blu-Ray, so maybe the audience is bigger, but I wouldn’t count on it. Also, going from the director of Layer Cake to the director of Never Back Down is never the best sign.
It did find it’s audience: On DVD and Blu-Ray. Kick Ass had a nice Internet campaign to build buzz, but no promotion beyond that. There was a built-in audience for it who all went to see it, and then it died because most of the people beyond the comic fans had never heard of it, and those who did had no idea what to make of it. Even the few mass audience ads totally hid Hit Girl because they didn’t know how the audience would react to her. The average movie goer never knew of Kick Ass the movie until after it was out of the theatres.
It’s built great awareness in the past two years and has a substantially larger following. That’s why the movie studio green lit the sequal.
Good to see Kick-Ass II
The first film was hilarious and bloody…and made up for its lower-than-expected box office by selling 1.5 million copies in first week of DVD release. There were quite a few kids paying for one movie but sneaking into another theatre screen to see Kick-Ass. The first film made money
Of course, Hit-Girl (Chloe Moretz) stole the show. Be interesting to see how the sequel handles an older Hit-Girl…or maybe how an older Hit-Girl handles the criminals
Who ever said Cry_Wolf sucked needs a beating. Wadlow.Owns.
Forget it. This was a C grade idea for a one-time movie. This isn’t a “franchise”. Let’s see something new that’ll appeal to more than just the Hot Topic crowd.
Thank you for the decision of kickass 2 although have more footage of hit girl, Chloe’s the most talented teen girl other than elle fanning! So please include step-sister (actress elle). I have a feeling joss weadon would give some pointers to get a bigger and wider audience.
Without Matthew Vaughn this movie will suck, the original was so good because of what he was willing to put on screen. Hit girl will probs end up more pc, the music wont be as whacky in the fight scenes, everything I loved will be gone guaranteed.