Friday, July 24, 2009

Comic-Con: Kick Ass Footage and Q&A with Matthew Vaughn and Cast

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With one day down, Kick Ass was undoubtedly the biggest surprise at Comic-Con thus far. While I was expecting the best given Matthew Vaughn's previous films, the pitch-perfect execution of the film in the clips and teaser were far beyond my expectations, and at one point even brought the majority of the audience to standing ovation. An outside observer might even say that Kick Ass was received more warmly than Avatar.

To be fair, Kick Ass isn't trying to redefine cinema like Avatar, but it is more crowd-pleasing right at the outset. Also, I think the audience was shocked (and amazed) to see the young Chloe Moretz as a completely brutal killer.

If you're not familiar with the comic, Kick Ass is about Dave Lizewski, a disaffected high school boy who decides to become a superhero named "Kick Ass". With a homemade costume, no powers, but complete determination, he eventually makes a name for himself and discovers other costumed vigilantes.

The clips shown during the panel were pretty much directly lifted from the comic, and Millar confirmed during the panel that even though some story elements were changed (he says they were improved since Vaughn had such a long time to work on the film), for the most part the film is sticking to the source. The first clip followed the first few pages of the comic, which featured a costumed hero jumping off a building to an untimely demise.

It was immediately evident that Vaughn knew the exact right tone to follow with the film, and the rest of the clips cemented that fact. We saw a clip of Kick Ass confronting some muggers (and failing miserably), as well as the introduction of Moretz's Hit Girl in a hilarious scene with her father (Big Daddy, played by Nicholas Cage). The action choreography was clean as well as free of rapid cuts and shaky cam, and it became clear that the casting was perfect across the board. Aaron Johnson was perfectly geeky as Dave Lizewski, Moretz fit her role like a glove, and even Nicholas Cage shined since the Big Daddy role actually needs him to chew on scenery.

After the clips we were also shown a teaser set to Joan Jett's Bad Reputation, and it may just be the best use of that song since the Freaks and Geeks intro. The teaser was full of action, and also gave us a look at Christopher Mintz-Plasse's Red Mist. I wouldn't be surprised if we see this exact trailer released as a red band very soon. Seeing it will easily create more eager fans for this film.

Vaughn mentioned that they're aiming for a first quarter 2010 release. They're still looking for a distributor though, so the release could easily fall further into 2010. In terms of production Vaughn mentioned that they're still working on choosing a good selection of songs to use in the film, and that's apparently taking longer than expected.

Hopfully, Vaughn will find a distributor for Kick Ass soon. It seems like a no-brainer for success, the film just needs a distributor brave enough to handle the crazy content.