In a lengthy interview with Hero Complex, critically acclaimed writer Mark Millar has not only let slip some details on the future of Kick-Ass in the comics, but also offered an update on the highly anticipated and long rumored sequel to the 2010 big screen adaptation of his and artist John Romita Jr's best-selling series. There's much more to be found over at the site, but here are some of the main excerpts - it sounds as if the chances of Matthew Vaughn returning to direct are now slimmer than ever, but that's not exactly a big surprise after the success of X-Men: First Class. Thankfully, he will seemingly be involved with the movie in some capacity by the sound of things!
On The Status Of The Planned Sequel To Kick-Ass: The thing about the first movie is that it kind of exploded all our careers. People forget, but this was a $28-million indie movie made in the UK. It grossed $100 million at theaters 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. But there’s a window because the actors are all supposed to be in high school and if this came out after 2013, for example, that window would have closed. I obviously know more than I can say, but I think people will be pretty happy with the conversations we’ve been having.
On The Future Of Kick-Ass In The Comic Books: Yes, “Kick-Ass” is a trilogy of books and there’s going to be two volumes of Hit-Girl too. And then that’s it. The whole, very complete, story has been in my head since the beginning. “Kick-Ass 2″ ends on a bit of a cliffhanger and this all gets resolved in “Kick-Ass 3.” I’ve known the last page of “Kick-Ass 3″ since I wrote Page 1 of the first series. Part of me loves the idea of this running and running like Spider-Man, but I also love the idea of it being finite and never being written or drawn by anyone other than me and Johnny. We can collect it into a nice box set, and hopefully it’ll just become a little classic that people discover in the future like the “Godfather” movies or “Lord of the Rings.” It would be easy to spin it off into lots of different books and hire other people to write them. It would be fast money because it outsells pretty much anything else out there right now. The first hardback, internationally, has sold almost a million copies everywhere from the USA to Israel to Japan and Italy and we’ve done five printings on the first issue of “Kick-Ass 2″ alone, beating almost everything at Marvel and DC. But you have to stick to your guns and let a story have a natural length. You can’t get greedy. Just because something sells doesn’t mean you should milk it to death. “Kick-Ass 3″ will absolutely be the last book and it’s a good ending. Plus, I’m lazy. If I have a choice between writing “Kick-Ass 4″ or nipping off down at the pub I’m always going to choose the pub.
On How He Feels About The DC Relaunch: I’m delighted to see DC getting back in the game with their reboot. Making characters who are as old as Donald Duck relevant to a modern audience isn’t easy. I joked about how they were Botoxing these old dudes and squeezing them back into their tights, but in all seriousness it’s been good for retailers and after a long time of soft sales on the bulk of their characters they’ve really got people’s attention again. I love a lot of the guys over there and grew up with these characters. Creatively, it’s not where my head’s at, because I think we need to do what Stan Lee and Jack Kirby did in the ’60s and move forward, creating a new generation of characters and concepts for a 21st century readership. But I like the fact they’ve done something ballsy like this and it’s put money in the pockets of retailers. I don’t know how long it’s going to last in the medium term, but a nice little boost in the meantime.
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