Let’s not be coy: Kick-Ass 2 sucked. And in my opinion, there was one single reason for that suckage: No Matthew Vaughn. The fan-favourite director/co-writer of the first film may have hand-picked Jeff Wadlow to be his replacement, but there’s simply no getting around the fact that the guy who made Never Back Down is nowhere close to being in the same league as the guy who made X-Men: First Class and Kingsman: The Secret Service.
So it warms my cockles that not only is Vaughn back on board with the series, but that he acknowledges that Kick-Ass 2 was a misstep and wants to fix it. His plans: Go back to the beginning with the franchise’s breakout star.
Answering numerous fan questions on Yahoo UK, Vaughn revealed that he wants to reinvigorate affairs with a prequel that focuses on the origin of Hit-Girl and Big Daddy, the foul-mouthed, ultra violent 12-year old vigilante played by Chloe Grace Moretz and her Batman-esque step-dad played by Nicolas Cage.
“I’m not happily done with the franchise, for sure. Kick-Ass is a very important film to me. I’m really proud of it, and we would like to dip our toe back into it, and when I say we, [I mean] [original comic book creator Mark Millar] and I and the team.
We’re working on an idea for a prequel of how did Hit Girl and Big Daddy become Hit Girl and Big Daddy. It’s quite a fun idea that we’ve come up with…
…I think we’ve got to do this prequel to regain the love that we had with ‘Kick-Ass’.”
The first movie, with its subversive balls-to-the-wall tone was an almost direct adaptation of Millar’s comic book miniseries of the same name, and Vaughn knocked it out of the park, making a star out of then reasonably unknowns Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Moretz. It may have only been a mild box-office success with $96 million off a $30 million budget, but it had a veritable army of supporters and tons of critical love.
But when the inevitable sequel came around a few years later, Vaughn handed over writing and directing efforts to Wadlow, who had the task of having to adapt not just Millar’s Kick-Ass follow-up comic, but also fold in the story elements of Millar’s Hit-Girl spinoff comic, as there was no way they could leave Moretz’s popular character out of the movie sequel. The result was an uneven mix between the two stories, while Wadlow’s direction felt, well, cheap.
It’s uncertain if Vaughn will be directing or penning the script for the Hit-Girl prequel with regular writing partner Jane Goldman again, or if Wadlow will be involved once more, but its clear that Vaughn wants to make it up to those folk who were left disappointed by the second film. And if they can do that, and do it well, it looks like we may just get another movie after that as well.
“If we make that, hopefully that will be the sorbet for the people that didn’t like ‘Kick-Ass 2’ and then we can go off and make ‘Kick-Ass 3’.
Vaughn is currently set to do a Flash Gordon remake, and there have been rumours that he’s in the running for the second Star Wars Anthology movie focusing on the rivalry between a young Han Solo and Boba Fett, so if he does tackle Hit Girl himself, it’s uncertain just when it would fit into his schedule.
You can watch the full interview with Vaughn below, in which he also speaks about how wanted to do a comedy sci-fi but Guardians of the Galaxy beat him to it, as well as some insights into the making of Kingsman.
Last Updated: June 19, 2015
James Francis
June 19, 2015 at 10:03
One issue will be that they can’t use Chloe Grace Moretz. She already aged visibly between the two movies and would not be able to sell a younger Hit Girl anymore.
Kervyn Cloete
June 19, 2015 at 10:11
Yeah, that’s a valid point. Not sure how they’re going to get around it.