Kick-Ass (film)

The rights to a film version of the first volume of the comic book series were sold before the first issue was published.[14] Developed in parallel, the film writers took a different story direction, to reach many of the same conclusions. Comic book writer Mark Millar acknowledges the differences, explaining that a comic usually has eight acts, while a film usually has a three-act structure.[15] Millar initially considered having American Jesus adapted and communicated to Vaughn about that concept, but Vaughn switched to Kick Ass after Millar mentioned it and sent some materials to Vaughn.[16]

Vaughn said that, "We wrote the script and the comic at the same time so it was a very sort of collaborative, organic process. I met [Millar] at the premiere of Stardust. We got on really well. I knew who he was and what he had done but I didn't know him. He pitched me the idea. I said, 'That's great!' He then wrote a synopsis. I went, 'That's great, let's go do it now! You write the comic, I'll write the script.'"[17] Jane Goldman, one of the screenwriters, said that when she works with Vaughn she does the "construction work" and the "interior designing" while Vaughn acts as the "architect."[18]

Millar said that screenwriters Goldman and Vaughn had made a "chick flick", having placed more emphasis on the character emotions and particularly in having softened the character of Katie Deauxma.[20] Millar stated that a film audience would have difficulty accepting Dave and Katie not being together, while a comic audience would more easily accept that idea.[15] Frank Lovece of Film Journal International said that Katie is "much less Mean Girls" in the film than in the comic, and that the romance between Dave and Katie "proves a needed counterbalance to the otherwise pervasive sense of optimism being stripped away layer by layer, down below angry cynicism and headed straight down the hole to nihilism."[21] Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times said "the romance provides an appealing backdrop that the more unnerving aspects of the film play out against."[22] Other changes included having Red Mist be known to be a secret antagonist from the start, as well as making him less outright villainous, and D'Amico's mob initially thinking Kick-Ass is the one slaughtering their men.

Creator Mark Millar signing posters for the movie and copies of the comics sequel, Kick-Ass 2, during an appearance at Midtown Comics in Manhattan.

In the original comic-book, Big Daddy is characterised not as an ex-cop, but as a former accountant who had been motivated to fight crime by a desire to escape from his life and by his love of comic books. In the film, his purported origin and motivations are genuine: writer Mark Millar stated that the revelation about Big Daddy's background would not have worked in the film adaptation and "would have ruined the movie."[23]

The comic's artist, John Romita, Jr., stated that Big Daddy's story in the film "works better stopping short ... You love him better in the film".[24]

The climax to the film differs significantly from the comics, with the use of the jetpack and rocket launcher: Millar called this "necessary" as "we're building up so much stuff that we needed some Luke Skywalker blowing up the Death Star moment".[23] Comic writer Stephen Grant argued that the film "cheated" on its premise of a "real life" superhero by having these increasingly fantastic events and that this was "why it works. That's where much of the humor comes from ... when the film finally makes the notion [the fantasy] explicit we're already so deep into the magician's act that our instinct is to play along".[25]

Vaughn initially went to Sony, which distributed Layer Cake, but he rejected calls to tone down the violence. Other studios expressed interest but wanted to make the characters older.[26] In particular studios wanted to change Hit-Girl's character into an adult.[27] Goldman said that while studio executives said that it would be less offensive to portray Hit-Girl as a teenager, Goldman argued that it would have been more offensive since, as a teenager, Hit-Girl would have been sexualized. Goldman said that Hit-Girl was not supposed to be sexualized.[28]

Vaughn had a little trouble adapting to film, as the film had no studio. The big studios doubted the success of an adaptation as a violent superhero, which made the film be independently financed, but this gave him the freedom to make the film the way he imagined, without having to worry about high-censorship. Vaughn believed enough in the project to raise the money himself.[26] Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Red Mist) said that the creators of the film were wondering whether a distributor would pick up the movie. On the set Vaughn jokingly referred to Kick-Ass as something that was going to be "the most expensive home movie I ever made".[27] On 18 August 2009, it was announced that the film had been acquired for distribution in the United States and Canada by Lionsgate.[29]

The 2D/3D animated comic book sequence in the film took almost two years to finish. Romita created the pencils, Tom Palmer did the inks, and Dean White did the colours. Vaughn gave Romita a carte blanche on the art direction of the sequence.[30]

Filming locations included Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; Dip 'N' Sip Donuts on Kingston Road in Toronto,[31] Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School,[32] and "many Toronto landmarks that play cameos";[31] and various locations in the United Kingdom, including Elstree Studios.[33] The opening sequence with Nicolas Cage was filmed in a sewage plant in east London.[23]

The Atomic Comics store in the film is based on the now-defunct real-life Arizona-based chain whose owner, Millar said, is a friend of artist John Romita Jr.[23] Millar asked Mike Malve for permission to use Atomic Comics in the film, and a model version of Atomic Comics was created at the London pilot studio for use in the filming.[34]

In an interview with Total Film, Aaron Johnson confirmed that the film stays true to the adult nature of the comic series by featuring a large amount of profanity and graphic violence. The film received an R rating by the MPAA for "strong brutal violence throughout, pervasive language, sexual content, nudity and some drug use—some involving children", and it received a 15 rating from the BBFC.[3][39] Director Matthew Vaughn felt the 15 certificate was about right and expressed some surprise at the film having received a "PG rating [sic]" in France.[20]

The film earned over $12 million internationally in advance of opening in the United States.[5][6] On its debut weekend in the United States it took in $19.8 million in 3,065 theaters, averaging $6,469 per theater.[6] Kick-Ass was reported number one, ahead of How to Train Your Dragon by $200,000, which was in its third week of release. On Saturday, 17 April 2010, it fell down to number three behind How To Train Your Dragon and Date Night. On Sunday, 2 May 2010, it fell down behind A Nightmare on Elm Street, How To Train Your Dragon, Furry Vengeance, The Back-Up Plan, Date Night, Clash of the Titans and The Losers. These numbers for Kick-Ass's debut weekend gross included non-weekend earnings, as the film was previewed during the Thursday night prior to its release.[40] The film's final gross in the U.S. was $48,071,303 and $48,117,600 outside of the U.S. with a worldwide gross of $96,188,903.[6]

The film was listed among the most infringed films of 2010; according to statistics on TorrentFreak, the film was illegally downloaded over 11.4 million times, second only to Avatar.[41]

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 76% based on 268 reviews and an average rating of 7.1/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Not for the faint of heart, Kick-Ass takes the comic adaptation genre to new levels of visual style, bloody violence, and gleeful profanity."[42] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 66 out of 100, based on 38 mainstream critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[43] American audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[44]

In the United Kingdom, The Guardian gave the film extensive coverage by several of its critics and journalists.[45] Peter Bradshaw gave the film 5/5 stars and called it an "explosion in a bad taste factory" that is "thoroughly outrageous, jaw-droppingly violent and very funny riff on the quasi-porn world of comic books; except that there is absolutely no 'quasi' about it."[46] Philip French, writing for The Observer, called the film "relentlessly violent" with "the foulest-mouthed child ever to appear on screen, [who makes] Louis Malle's Zazie sound like Cosette" and one "extremely knowing in its appeal to connoisseurs of comic strips and video games."[12] David Cox wrote an article published in The Guardian, saying that the film "kicks the c-word into the mainstream [...] has inadvertently dispatched our last big expletive."[47]

Chris Hewitt of Empire magazine gave the film 5/5 and declared it, "A ridiculously entertaining, perfectly paced, ultra-violent cinematic rush that kicks the places other movies struggle to reach. ... the film's violence is clearly fantastical and cartoonish and not to be taken seriously."[48]

Critics who enjoyed the film generally singled out its audacity, humour, and performances of the cast. Peter Howell of the Toronto Star gave Kick-Ass a top rating, writing that the production "succeeds as a violent fantasy about our perilous and fretful times, where regular citizens feel compelled to take action against a social order rotting from within."[49] USA Today critic Claudia Puig praised Moretz as "terrific ... Even as she wields outlandish weaponry, she comes off as adorable."[50] Manohla Dargis from The New York Times wrote, "Fast, periodically spit-funny and often grotesquely violent, the film at once embraces and satirizes contemporary action-film clichés with Tarantino-esque self-regard."[51] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B+, but noted that "personally, I just wish that the film had ended up a bit less of an over-the-top action ride."[52]

Other reviews were more negative. Roger Ebert found the film highly offensive and "morally reprehensible", giving it one out of four stars. He cited the coarse language and violence, particularly the scene in which Hit-Girl is nearly killed by D'Amico. "When kids in the age range of this movie's home video audience are shooting one another every day in America, that kind of stops being funny." Ebert's only notes of praise were for the performances of Cage, Johnson and Moretz. The movie made that week's "Your Movie Sucks" list of one-star movies.[53]

Tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph did not like the film either, rating it 1/5 and stating, "Matthew Vaughn's Kick Ass is hollow, glazed, and not quite there".[54]

Karina Longworth writing for The Village Voice, was not impressed with the film's intended satire and themes: "Never as shocking as it thinks it is, as funny as it should be, or as engaged in cultural critique as it could be, Kick-Ass is half-assed."[55]

In an interview, Matthew Vaughn said, "There is about 18 minutes of [deleted] footage, which is really good stuff. If the film is a hit, I'll do an extended cut."[67] The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 3 August 2010 in North America. This version does not contain the aforementioned deleted content.[68] Selling 1.4 million units within its first week, one-third of these in Blu-ray format, Kick-Ass debuted at number one on the DVD sales chart.[69][70] The discs were released in the United Kingdom on 6 September 2010.[71]

After its release on home video, it developed a cult following.[72]