5 Facts About "Kick-Ass 2"

Writer: Casey Lee

Kick-Ass and Hit Girl are ready to kick some mother***ing a**.

Before the superhero genre exploded with "The Avengers", which paved the way for films to have as many superheroes as they can sharing the same scene, "Kick-Ass" was a movie that sprung the genre up from the wayside. Back in 2010, "Kick-Ass" offered a satirical look on the price of being a superhero when it introduced highschooler Dave Lizewski as the tonfa-wielding Kick-Ass and the deadly Hit Girl.

While the scale of "Kick-Ass 2" may seem minute compared to the likes of "Iron Man", "Thor", "Captain America", "Man Of Steel" and Marvel's upcoming "Guardians Of The Galaxy", the film is heading towards the direction of showing what are the consequence of wearing the mask to fight for justice.

Before going in to see the new adventures of Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl though, here are five things that you might want to know about "Kick-Ass 2", spoiler-free with no extra charge.

When the first issue of "Kick-Ass" came out in 2008, a script was already being written for its big screen adaptation by Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman, with Vaughn eventually taking the helm to make the movie. When "Kick-Ass" became an unexpected hit and amassed a huge following, it would skyrocket Vaughn's name to land him bigger gigs such as Marvel's "X-Men: First Class". So when plans for a "Kick-Ass" sequel were announced, there were some doubts in getting Vaughn back for the second time around.

"The thing about the first movie is that it kind of exploded all our careers. People forget, but this was a USD 28-million indie movie made in the UK. It grossed USD 100 million at theatres and made the same again and more on DVD and Blu-ray and got amazing reviews. So everybody involved suddenly got hired for a million different things, and re-forming the band again would be impossible. Hopefully, we can use the same actors if and when we do a sequel, but getting Matthew [Vaughn] to direct or Jane to write a movie at this budget would be very difficult because they're superstars now and they have projects of their own. I'd imagine, if this happens any time soon, that Matthew will produce and possibly co-write, like George Lucas did with "The Empire Strikes Back," and hire a new director," said "Kick-Ass" creator Mark Millar.

With growing concerns that the sequel needed to be made before the original cast outgrow their characters (Chloe Moretz was already 15 when the sequel was announced), it was decided that the sequel would have to be made by someone else. But Vaughn wasn't going to let the franchise to hang out and dry without finding a suitable replacement.

In an interview a year ago, Mark Millar describes how he met Jeff Widlow:

"Jeff Wadlow had been talking to Matthew about doing this movie "Bloodshot" a couple of years back and Matthew was really impressed with his script. He'd done a couple of movies on a small budget, and Matthew was like 'trust me, this is the guy.' So the three of us have been talking seriously for about eight months, and Jeff turned in a final draft of the screenplay about eight weeks ago."

While many of us might not have seen Wadlow's best known works such as "Cry_Wolf" and "Never Back Down", there is reason enough to believe that Vaughn would not simply put the franchise that had built his name into the hands of someone who doesn't have a keen understanding of what made the first instalment great.

Following the announcement that a sequel was going to be made thanks to strong DVD sales, a spin off from the "Kick-Ass" comic series was published, titled "Hit Girl", which centred on the titular character after the death of her father by the end of the first volume as seen in the movie.

Asked about how Mindy Macready a.k.a. Hit Girl's development would be in the sequel, Mark Millar gives some insights: "Hit-Girl's identity is [widely] known by this point – and it evokes much nasty yabbering behind Mindy's back by her schoolmates (she's nicknamed "Captain Muffin-Muncher")... But Hit-Girl, never one to shy away from a confrontation and seemingly always equipped with the perfect weapon of self-defence, gets [revenge in]... let's say, rather spectacular fashion. It involves gadgetry, projectile vomiting and much begging."

After that, Millar published the "Kick-Ass 2: Balls To The Wall" series which brought the story back to its central character Dave/Kick Ass and the formation of a new league of caped crusaders called themselves "Justice Forever".

Millar himself explained it, "Hit-Girl's comic book will be the first 30 minutes of the movie and then the next 70 minutes is "Kick-Ass 2 [Balls 2 The Wall]". So "Hit-Girl" is structured as the first act."

For its uncharacteristic portrayal of violence, especially when it involves limb mutilations being performed by a masked katana-wielding 11-year-old girl, "Kick-Ass" was far from being shy around controversy during its release. One might say that it owed its cult status to the gratuitous amounts of blood and cusses being spilled and spewed, so it was a formula that was going to be repeated in the sequel.

Aside from having a darker tone, Mark Millar was very positive that "Kick-Ass 2" would be controversial when he said: "Every horrible scene in the book will be in the film. The c*** line in the first one, everybody said "there's no way you're getting that in the movie", but it happened and it's the same thing with this. Everybody is saying "you can't have a gang rape scene with supervillains" and "you can't have the dog's head cut off," but every single one of those scenes will go in it." However, as production for the sequel came closer, it would be inevitable that some scenes that were depicted in the comics may be too disturbing even for the cast and crew themselves to be put on the big screen. Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who played as Red Mist reborn as The Motherf***er in the sequel, was relieved to reveal that one of the most controversial scenes in the comics – the rape scene – would not be in the movie during an interview at Comic-Con 2012.

Shortly after "Kick-Ass 2" was released in the United States, director Jeff Wadlow stepped in to explain why they had to remove it and how comic books and movies work differently as a medium.

"I understand what Mark was going for in that scene. I felt as a filmmaker – because I'm dealing with real people, not drawings of people – the audience didn't need to be taken that far to experience the same kind of feeling. And also Chris, as far as the three leads go, Chris Mintz-Plasse, his characterization of Chris D'Amico is probably the most different from Chris in the comic. When you compare Dave in the comic to Aaron's Dave or Chloe's Mindy, [Chris] has probably moved the character the furthest away from the source material. So I wanted to create a scene there that was true to what Mark is trying to do in the comic, but also acknowledge that our Chris is slightly different than Chris in the comic and the audience doesn't need to be taken that far to have the same emotional response," he said.

It is becoming a sort of a tradition thanks to Stan Lee that every comic book writer or creator must be in the bigscreen adaptation of their own creation. It is known that "Kick-Ass" writer and creator Mark Millar and artist John Romita Jr. would have a cameo appearance in the sequel.

Though there likely wouldn't be any close-ups of the two men in the movie itself, but it would certainly be fun if you can spot them. The only hint that we're giving is that it would be in the scene during the showdown between Kick Ass' and The Motherf***er league of heroes and villains, so it isn't going to be easy to spot them with them wearing a mask.

When the dust settles after the final battle, don't be so quick to leave your seats just yet because there would be a kick-ass scene. We can't really say what it is but it would certainly give hope that there would be a third instalment to end this whole series as a trilogy.