“Kick-Ass” gave fanboys something to squeal about in 2010. Dark humor? Check. Sweet fight choreography? Check. Perfectly placed Nicolas Cage insanity? Double check. And it was a hit, earning nearly $100 million worldwide, which is not too shabby for an R-rated, niche comic book movie. Three years later, “Kick-Ass 2” delivered none of the above. The sequel opened at number five at the box office, and barely scraped its way to $60 million. And Chloë Grace Moretz blames downloaders for the film’s failure, alleging they are the reason a third movie won’t happen.
"Sadly, I think I’m done with the character," Moretz told Digital Spy. "Hit-Girl was a very cool character, but I don’t think there will be any more movies. You make these movies for the fanboys, but nowadays everyone seems to pirate them rather than watch them in the movie theatre.
“ ‘Kick-Ass 2’ was one of the number-one pirated movies of the year, but that doesn’t help us because we need box office figures," she continued. "We need to prove to the distributors that we can make money from a third and a fourth movie —but because it didn’t do so well, we can’t make another one. If you want more than one movie, everyone has to go and see movies at the cinema. It’s all about the numbers in the theater.”
We’re not quite sure where Moretz got her stats, since "Kick-Ass 2" is noticeably absent from the top ten most pirated films of 2013. Nonetheless, the young actress is sure that the economics of the digital age —and not the notion that the film in question was a crappy sequel that all but tainted the original— are the reason “Kick-Ass” likely won’t return. Then again, economics are probably why the film was pirated so much, as Moretz claims; it just wasn’t worth paying for.
