"Kick-Ass 2" Japanese Theatrical Poster
Mark Millar, creator of the comic books, Kick-Ass and The Secret Service – the basis for the upcoming Kingsman: The Secret Service – recently mentioned that a planned Hit-Girl spin-off movie was in the works. Here’s the interesting part: Gareth Evans (The Raid, The Raid 2) was in talks for the project.
Here’s what Millar told IGN during a recent interview: “Before Kick-Ass 2 came out, we’d been talking about a Hit-Girl spin-off movie… we’d even talked to a director – we had a couple of calls with Gareth Evans, who I absolutely love. He’s an amazing director. But Gareth’s now busy.”
Well, one can only imagine what a Evans-directed Hit-Girl movie would have been like, but hey, at least we have The Raid 3 to look forward to in 2018.
Updates: In a recent interview with Yahoo, this is what Matthew Vaughn (director of the original Kick-Ass) had to say about a Hit-Girl prequel and a Kick-Ass 3: “I’m not happily done with the franchise, for sure. Kick-Ass is a really important film to me and I’m very proud of it, and we would like to dip our toe back into it—when I say ‘we’ I mean Mark [Millar] and I and the team… We’re working on an idea for a prequel of how did Hit Girl and Big Daddy become Hit Girl and Big Daddy. If we make that, hopefully that will be the sorbet for the people that didn’t like Kick-Ass 2, and then we can go off and make Kick-Ass 3. But I think we’ve got to do this prequel just to regain the love that we had with Kick-Ass.”
It’s hard to imagine it would have been anything other than good with Evans on board but would he have been allowed to do it his way?
That’s a good point you have. That’s probably why he refused/wasn’t interested. But then again, “Kick-Ass” is pretty much anti-Hollywood (at least the first one was – very violent, kids with guns, etc…. always a touchy subject), and it followed the comic book pretty closely.
I’d love to see a new Gareth Evans film, but definitely not this.
It would probably be good for his bank balance to start working in the States, but not good for the quality of his films. I can’t think of any Asian based action director (I know he’s British) who’s gone to America and and made anything other than watered down inferior versions of their earlier films.
Plus I just didn’t like Kick Ass.
Evans seems like a humble “family” guy who wants to live a private life (especially outside the Hollywood realm). I honestly don’t think he was expecting to be one of those filmmakers who receive first billing (Tarantino, Cohen, Woo) over their stars. Due to his talent, he’s sorta stuck there.
The guy obviously isn’t making movies to be rich. If that were the case, “The Raid 3” would be in post-production as we speak. And I agree, I’d rather see him conquer something totally new (out of his own mind), than some comic book.
And you’re right. After much thought, there isn’t one filmmaker who came to Hollywood from their stomping grounds to make as good as they used to. The only one that comes close is Bong Joon Ho with “Snowpiercer,” but even this one is technically a Korean film.