In an interview with Radio 5’s Richard Bacon, writer Mark Millar revealed that, thanks to strong DVD sales, a Kick-Ass sequel is definitely on its way...
Kick-Ass was a film that deserved to go down a storm at the box office. It had everything going for it: a perfectly selected cast, a sterling script, and the kind of tabloid denouncement that marketing can't buy. But somehow, the movie never did the business everybody hoped it would, and even a strong critical reception failed to see it take off as expected.
In a BBC Radio 5 interview with Richard Bacon, writer Mark Millar admitted that Kick-Ass didn't perform as he'd hoped in cinemas, and hinted that the film's poster may have been part of the problem.
"Somebody pointed out that it was exactly the same as Kung-Fu Panda's poster, so a lot of people thought it looked like a kid's film," Millar said. "If you think about it, [Kick-Ass] had a twelve-year-old kid, and a sixteen-year-old lead, and they were all people you didn't know yet. So, it looked like a children's film, but you had to be 15 or 18 to go and see it, depending on what country it was. So, we kind of fell between two stools, I think."
The film has, however, found a new lease of life on DVD, and Millar said that Kick-Ass' hugely positive word-of-mouth has seen small screen sales take off in the US, and revealed that this recent success will definitely mean a sequel is on the way.
"It was a hard film to market, but the word-of-mouth's been amazing for us. The estimate is that it'll do £100 to £150 million on DVD based on the American sales. It'll end up making a quarter of a billion on a £28 million investment [...] so the sequel's been greenlit. We can go ahead and do the follow-up now."
"So, Kick-Ass 2 is definitely happening?" a clearly excited Bacon asked, to which Millar replied, "The first one made so much compared to what it cost, so we'd be crazy not to."
Millar also found time to praise Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, and revealed that he enjoyed it so much that he'd seen it at the cinema twice. It's highly likely that, like Kick-Ass, the similarly under-performing Scott Pilgrim will find an equally enthusiastic following on DVD.
The Mark Millar interview is well worth listening to in full. To do so, follow the link below. Mark Millar's segment begins at roughly 45 minutes in.
Meanwhile, the Blu-ray and DVD of Kick-Ass hits UK stores on 6 September.
We've put the UK Kick-Ass poster beside the Kung Fu Panda poster and, even before you click to enlarge it, you can see.. yup, they look an awful lot alike...