Mark Millar Posts KICK-ASS 2 Set Report; Comments On Matthew Vaughn And EPISODE VII

So this week was great fun and such a shame I had to shoot off and get back. Working on Jupiter's Children issues 4 and 5 this week (I want to finish the whole series before the first issue gets released and not letting any producers see it until the whole thing is complete) and a secret project you'll find out about in the next couple of weeks. You know about Kick-Ass 2, Nemesis and The Secret Service in various stages of movie adaptation, but there's three more you'll get news on soon and the one in the next week or two is a secret project you literally haven't heard a word about in any medium. So that's all very exciting, but I needed to get home and get back to making lans for the adaptation. The story has now been completely written and the screen-writer starts in a couple of weeks time. More on this later.

But Kick-Ass 2. What can I say? Let me tell you that yesterday as I was sitting in Eddie Hamilton's edit suite (think James Coburn's apartment in Our Man Flint) I literally for the first time thought this might actually be BETTER than the original. This was a huge moment for me because there is no bigger fan of the first movie than me. I think it's pretty close to perfect. But there's so much in this, the whole thing so rich, that I honestly think this might be the Empire Strikes Back to Star Wars. I'd seen over 40 mins before, but seeing the edited version of the next 20 mins gave me a very comprehensive look for how the finished movie is going to look and I was actually quite shocked. I won't spoil scenes for anyone who hasn't read the source material (the Hit-Girl series and Kick-Ass 2 comic), but there are so many great moments here. Kubrick said that a great movie has eight terrific moments. I lay in bed this morning and counted fourteen genuine movie-moment scenes. You can look at the book and probably guess these, but they're articulated so beautifully. I was really happy when I came away a couple of weeks back, but the Millar Gang and I were ecstatic when we left Eddie's suite yesterday. People are going to LOVE this and we all had a feeling that this was going to go really wide when it opens next June.

To get myself vibed up, we watched the first Kick-Ass again before we went down and the thing that pleased me was the fact this feels like a continuation and an evolution as opposed to a retread. It doesn't have that Hangover 2 thing where it's just same jokes. It feels very new and fresh and all the new characters really work. Chloe's scenes work especially well. She hadn't had that much edited when I saw it a couple of weeks back, but this time I'm really getting a flavour of what she's doing with this kid who's never had to deal with social situations before. The tiny death-dealer from the first movie was a great gag, but the fact she's 3 years older now works great as it makes the movie go into a slightly different place, allowing her to be teased and bullied by people in school she's not allowed to kill. She's a 14 year old girl who's into John Woo more than 1 Direction and this stuff is AGONISING when you see it. Again, I won't give any spoilers, but she just hits all the marks as beautifully as you'd expect. And Claudia Lee totally dazzled me as her arch-nemesis in the school yard. We were all blown away by her audition, but she's phenomenal in these scenes and I predict she's going to be one of the biggest female stars under 30 in the next few years. Somebody save this and read it back in 2016. This kid is the next Rachel McAdams or Scarlett Johansson.

Vaughn departed X-Men because our Secret Service project was being copied by a few scripts doing the round and we didn't want anyone to beat us out there with our own idea. Star Wars has since, of course, announced an Episode 7 and he's been touted as a possible director for that movie. All I can say is that if he DOES get picked to helm the next Star Wars there would be nobody with more passion or enthusiasm for the project. I really don't think there could be a better choice, especially as we've referenced Star Wars pretty much every day in the 5 years we've known one another.