While completing his press tour for The King’s Man, director Matthew Vaughn discussed his plans to reboot his 2010 superhero adaptation Kick-Ass. It’s the rare case of a director taking another crack at telling the same story, much like Simon Kinberg did with X-Men: The Dark Phoenix after previously attempting the saga in X-Men: The Last Stand. Hopefully, Vaughn’s reboot will be more successful.
Vaughn told Collider, “We’ve got a big reboot of Kick-Ass in two years. Big reboot,” adding “It’s so fucking nuts that I can’t talk about it. But we’ve got that ready to go. All the rights revert back in two years and then we’re going to reboot it where people will be like, he is insane.”
When Kick-Ass was released in 2010, it offered a darkly comic and irreverent take on superheroes. The hard R-rated film also featured over-the-top violence and plenty of swearing, thanks to breakout character Hit-Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz). The film’s success led to a sequel, Kick-Ass 2 in 2013, which was directed by Jeff Wadlow. But a planned third chapter was scrapped after Kick-Ass 2 underperformed at the box office.
While Kick-Ass was the first R-rated mainstream comic book movie, it has since spawned a popular subgenre of mature comic book adaptations, including the Deadpool films, Birds of Prey, and Joker. Adult-oriented comic book fare has also become popular on streaming services, from Netflix’s Marvel series to Amazon’s The Boys and Invincible.
There is source material for a Kick-Ass follow-up, most notably the continuing Hit-Girl series as well as Kick-Ass: The New Girl which centers on Black protagonist Patience Lee, an Afghanistan war veteran and single mother who dons the Kick-Ass costume to clear her family’s financial debts. Patience and Hit-Girl face off against one another in a recent comic book run.
But it seems that Vaughn wants to focus on an original story instead of a sequel. He said, “Because I think the clue is in the title. I think Kick-Ass became a new type of genre. Everyone was like, ‘Oh, you can’t make R-rated superheroes. No one will want to see an R-rated superhero. You can’t do this. You can’t do that.’ So, I had this idea, and it was so nuts that I went, ‘Yeah, great. It’ll cause just as much controversy, and everyone will talk about it and as many people that love it will hate it.’ But I’m not saying it hasn’t got the characters in it and won’t have, you know. I’m just saying it’s not what anyone could be imagining what it is. And I’m going to need one very, very brave actor or actress to play the new Kick-Ass because it will scare the shit out of them.”
Will Vaughn’s newly rebooted Kick-Ass contain the graphic violence and dirty jokes the series is known for, or will he engineer something entirely new? Vaughn has always delivered stylish and thrilling adaptations, from Stardust to X-Men: First Class to Kingsman: The Secret Service. We’re excited to see where he takes Kick-Ass next.
(via Collider, image: Lionsgate)
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