Scottish comic book writer and self-aggrandizer Mark Millar, the co-creator of “Kick-Ass,” is known as the boy who cried wolf and more to the point: a total bullshit artist. And this is how he’s known by his own community, the geek film constituency.
He once announced that rapper Eminem would be in the film version of “Wanted” (another property he helped create) and obviously that never happened (some reports suggest he was just trying to build buzz). He also told anyone who would listen that he was writing a “Superman” film, but to our knowledge no one’s ever seen that draft. He then recently said he was asked to write “X-Men 4,” but turned down the gig (which no one believed for even a second).
And part of the “lies” stem from the fact that Millar seems to be a bit of a trickster which never helps his case. In 2005 he lost a $5,000 bet to Harry Knowles regarding the casting of the new “Superman” film (which he later conveniently called a publicity stunt), and he also once wrote a fictional article detailing the pre-production struggles of a “Batman” film directed by Orson Welles (which fans believed and then were pissed when it was revealed that it was all a joke; sounds like a good fictional screenplay to us).
So what’s the latest fib from Millar? He recently said, “Kick-Ass 2: Balls To The Wall” had been scheduled for production in 2011 for a cinematic release in 2012.
But apparently this is B.S. too and the claim has been shot down by one of the actors in the film. “Don’t believe what you are hearing about Kick-Ass 2 guys,” “Kick-Ass” star Christopher Mintz-Plasse said on Twitter yesterday knocking down Millar’s boast. “It is not confirmed, but I will love to do it when the time is right!”
Frankly, we’re not surprised. More to the point, we don’t really care that much. “Kick-Ass” was what some called a ballet and celebration of hyper-violence, but it wasn’t near as clever as it thought it was and while entertaining in spots, it was still rather crude (though yes, Nicholas Cage was aces). Whatever, either way, don’t expect “Kick-Ass 2” to be shooting on the Mark Millar timetable. We would also expect that director Matthew Vaughn wouldn’t be involved either, but that’s just our hope that he’ll move on to more worthwhile projects deserving of his kinetic cinematic talents.