Matthew Vaughn’s subversive superhero movie Kick-Ass became a solid cult favorite a decade ago, finding a second and long-lasting life on home video after initially earning $90 million in theaters. Word of mouth saw a legion of fans flock to the foul-mouthed and blackly hilarious comic book adaptation, with the director taking great joy in upending the established tropes of the genre.
A sequel followed three years later with Jeff Wadlow at the helm, although Vaughn remained on board as a producer alongside Brad Pitt, among others. Unfortunately, the buildup to Kick-Ass 2 was overshadowed by star Jim Carrey completely disowning it due to the perceived glorification of violence, but that didn’t really matter anyway when the second installment turned out to be a damp squib that suffered a huge drop in both box office takings and critical reactions.
Of course, there’ve been rumblings every now and again over the last few years that a third outing could be in the works, with insider Daniel Richtman claiming this week that a Hit Girl vs. Kick-Ass movie is in development, and the original stars are expected to return. Unfortunately, the tipster offers no further details, and several of the talents involved in the first two pics have expressed very different sentiments.
Chloe Grace Moretz, for instance, has stated on more than one occasion that she’s not particularly interested in playing Mindy McCready again, while Vaughn himself said in 2018 that he was planning on rebooting the series under his Marv Studios banner with Patience Lee stepping up to the plate in the absence of Dave Lizewski. It’s unclear if there’s even much of an audience for another Kick-Ass these days, but the aforementioned director seems intent to continue building out the Kingsman franchise, so maybe his other comic book property is in line for the same treatment.
