I’m really surprised that Matthew Vaughn’s willing to let someone else play with his toys.
After all, “Kick-Ass” wasn’t just some studio gig he got hired for that was going to happen with or without his involvement. He chose to make the film outside the studio system because he knew it wasn’t going to be easy to convince people to let him do certain things like cast a real 12 year old to play Hit Girl or keep the extreme attitude of the thing.
As Mark Millar’s been publishing “Kick-Ass 2” over the last year or so, the question has been raised many times about whether or not there would be a movie sequel. Every time I ran into a member of the cast of the original, they seemed absolutely ready to jump back in and return to these characters. Chris Mintz-Plasse in particular seemed hungry to play the villain this time, and he seemed excited by where the character had gone on the comics.
Now, according to reports, Universal may well step in as the home for “Kick-Ass 2,” and while Matthew Vaughn’s MARV Films remains in control of the material, Vaughn and his screenwriting partner Jane Goldman are not going to be hands-on in quite the same way this time.
They’re focused right now on getting a sequel to “X-Men: First Class” ready so as soon as Jennifer Lawrence finishes with “Catching Fire,” the “Hunger Games” sequel, she’ll be able to jump right into playing Mystique again. When you’re dealing with this sort of franchise filmmaking with this many cast members who are all in demand, you don’t always have a lot of options for when things are going to start, and so you make the choices you can.
In this case, it looks like Jeff Wadlow is going to write and direct the sequel. I’m not going to pretend some sort of long-lasting love of his earlier films like “Never Back Down” or “Cry Wolf,” and I’m curious what it was that got him the job. Whatever it is, being tapped to both write and direct suggests that his take on the film was compelling to MARV Films, since he’s been onboard for a while now. This wasn’t a Universal hire… this is the person that Vaughn personally handed things off to, and I’m certainly curious to see what vision he has for this return to the uber-violent world of “Kick-Ass.”
We’ll have more on this as plans come together, and we’re certainly hoping for something great.