Kick-Ass 3 Movie Depends on Kick-Ass 2 Box Office

In what can be interpreted as a sign that studios aren't going out on a limb even for established properties these days, Mark Millar tweeted yesterday that the planned Kick-Ass 3 film adaptation--based on the just-started comic book miniseries of the same name--will not go forward unless Kick-Ass 2 is a success at the box office. "A third and final Kick-Ass movie obviously dependent on how many billions the second one makes. We'll know Monday after release," Millar told a fan who asked about the status of the film. While this might seem pretty obvious--you don't make a third one if the second one tanks--the Kick-Ass movies are comparably inexpensive and ever since Millar teased the prospect of a third one in SFX in February, many fans have just assumed that it would be entering production soon. "Kick-Ass 3 is going to be the last one though," Millar said at the time. "I told Universal this and they asked me, 'What does that mean?' I said, 'It means that this is where it all ends.' They said, 'Do they all die at the end?' I said, 'Maybe' – because this is a realistic superhero story. And if someone doesn't have a bullet proof vest like Superman and doesn't have Batman's millions then eventually he is going turn around the wrong corner and get his head kicked in or get shot in the face [laughs]. So Kick-Ass needs to reflect that. There has to be something dramatic at the end, he cannot do this for the rest of his life." The first Kick-Ass, directed by X-Men: First Class helmer Matthew Vaughn, cost $30 million and generated $48 million in domestic ticket sales, besides doing well on home video and Netflix. It also helped catapult stars Aaron Taylor Johnson and Chloe Grace-Moretz to stardom. The second film is planned for an August release, having given up Vaughn but brought director Jeff Wadlow and star Jim Carrey on board.