Update: Deadline reports that Aaron Johnson, Chloe Moretz and Christopher Mintz-Plasse are all now close to deals to return. And from the sounds of it, Nic Cage it itching to pop in for what must surely be a flashback cameo...
There are some sequels that really aren’t surprising, like today’s announcement that Disney is officially at work on Avengers 2. But there are those that seemed a lot less likely but suddenly, shockingly come into focus. Case in point? Universal is officially in talks to make Kick-Ass 2.
Mark Millar comes in for a lot of stick in some corners for prematurely announcing developments on adaptations of his comics. Indeed, he’s been labelled as the boy who cried Wolverine on more than one occasion. But it turns out we all just had to have a little bit of faith on this one.
Cry Wolf writer-director Jeff Wadlow, who has been writing the script under the direction of Millar and original **Kick-Ass **director Matthew Vaughn, will be stepping up to call the shots on the eventual project as Vaughn will be very slightly busy elsewhere in the superhero community, gearing up the X-Men: First Class sequel. But he'll naturally be involved as a producer.
Though he’s currently setting up to make air marshal thriller Non-Stop, Wadlow and co have apparently already put the new Kick-Ass script in front of Universal executives, who are hammering out a deal to get it shooting in August, assuming everything works out.
The big question for now is the cast, including Aaron Johnson, Chloe Moretz and Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who have all gone on to busy careers (particularly Moretz) and may need time to clear space in their diaries.
So while it’s not 100% all locked in yet, this is the closest we’ve come to getting the thing rolling. It may not have seemed like the original did enough box office to warrant a sequel, but making $103 million worldwide from a $28 million budget is nothing to be sniffed at. Plus, it became a cult favourite, with a big following itching to see more about Dave Lizewski, Mindy Macready and the rest...