Mark Millar Pushing Through Kick-Ass 2 And More

Most of the key cast members in Mark Millar and Matthew Vaughn's too-young-to-drink superhero saga Kick-Ass are currently going through those formative years where a sudden Harry Potter-style growth spurt could end up maturing them dramatically almost over night. As such, any sequel to the movie would need to be put on the fast track and, according to Sci Fi Wire's new interview with Millar, that's indeed what is happening. As well as the sequel, Millar also mentioned the planned adaptations of War Heroes and American Jesus. Details after the break.

Peter reported exclusively last September that the big-screen take on War Heroes was caught in a behind-the-scenes clash with a proposed adaptation of Shannon Eric Denton and Keith Giffen's Grunts. Similarities between the two series were apparently holding back both projects, though I have to admit I'm a little surprised. We can have, for example, dueling films about Truman Capote and his authorship of In Cold Blood but a pair of, in most respects rather clearly differentiated, comic-book war movies are causing cold feet for the studios? Blimey – there really must be some kind of credit crunch on.

It doesn't sound from Millar's comments that War Heroes is necessarily moving forward at the moment, either, just that it was optioned:

Several of [my] titles got picked up to be made into movies. Kick-Ass. War Heroes. I'm doing American Jesus.

The official announcement of American Jesus, which will again team Millar with Vaughn, came in March. At that point they were looking to get rolling this summer, which makes sense with the Kick-Ass 2 timescale Millar proposes:

Kick-Ass 2 is already being plotted out. We're planning it, because all the actors are quite young and we have to make it relatively quickly. So we'll definitely do that inside the next 18 to 24 months.

So, by the looks of things, Vaughn is set for three consecutive adaptations of Millar's works. They do seem to work together well, however with Kick-Ass already gathering good word and Millar himself very pleased with their collaborative process:

Everybody who's seen bits of it [Kick-Ass] were rubbing their hands together with excitement because they think they've stumbled onto something very big.

Matthew and I spent weeks and weeks on the phone every day for a couple of hours while he was writing the screenplay. Then I would get out to his house, and we'd spend days blocking it all out and so on and changing stuff and nailing it down. Then there was the casting process where, every day, we were looking at actors and actresses, and that took weeks and weeks and weeks.

I was involved in the costume design, set design and then just on set for, I don't know, three days a week for the whole shoot. And now I'm involved with the editing. So Matthew has been brilliant. I got paid to be a producer on Wanted, and it wasn't a great deal of work, but Matthew has actually had me really involved at each stage, which I appreciate a lot.

More or less involved that Rodriguez had Miller on Sin City? Worth a co-directing credit? Or perhaps, to look at it another way, perhaps Miller didn't earn his title on the Rodriguez film?

I really rather liked the Kick-Ass script and am really very sure that Millar's right and they have a big hit on their hands here. Looking forward to it yet?