It’s a three-way dance to see which studio is the most ‘Kick-Ass.’ According to Risky Biz Blog, Lionsgate, Paramount, and Universal are each vying to be the independently made film about a super hero teen. Early word of the violence in the Matthew Vaughn-directed film made many studios squeamish about picking up the film. However, footage shown at this year’s Comic Con has sparked some heavy buzz amongst comic book fans. After screenings were held for potential buyers, most of the studios who had turned away from the film initially gained a certain level of interest.
Based on the comic book by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr., the film stars Aaron Johnson as a high school geek who decides to turn himself into a real-life crimefighter. Things get hairy once he runs into actual criminals with actual weapons. Nicolas Cage, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Mark Strong co-star.
The film was initially dealing with Sony Pictures, but dealings fell through when the studio and the creators couldn’t agree on the age of the film’s leads. Sony wanted to raise the age of the film’s lead female to that of an older teenager. After this, Vaughn and company decided to self-finance the film with the hopes of picking up a buyer after the film was completed.
We should be getting word within the next few days which of the above studios will come out on top. With movies like ‘Punisher: War Zone,’ ‘Gamer,’ and the ‘Crank’ series, Lionsgate certainly has no qualms with putting out an R-rated action extravaganza. However, you have to think established studios like Paramount and Universal will be able to strong-arm the smaller competition if they choose to.
Paramount’s got the inside track going in the comic book realm with films like ‘Iron Man,’ ‘Transformers,’ and the upcoming slate of Marvel adaptations. On the other hand, Paramount isn’t really one to put much backing into an R-rated fan movie like ‘Kick-Ass.’ Despite dealing with Paramount on ‘Stardust,’ they really aren’t the best course of action for Vaughn to take with his film.
This leaves Universal, which has had major, R-rated releases in the past few years like ‘Wanted,’ ‘Public Enemies,’ and the Judd Apatow slate of movies. Universal also proved with last year’s ‘The Strangers’ that it is a studio that has no problem with taking a smaller budget film and pushing it into a tentpole position. This isn’t to say Universal is going to be the film to come out on top of this buyers competition, but it is certainly the studio that would treat the film’s release the way it should.
