In 2010, Chloe Grace Moretz high-kicked her way into our hearts as the tiny and foul-mouthed Hit-Girl from Kick-Ass. The R-rated action comedy that took a decidedly less glamorous look at superheroes eventually spawned Kick-Ass 2. But don't hold your breath for a third adventure with Mindy MacCready. Moretz says her time is over.
While doing press for her teen-centered tearjerker If I Stay, Moretz talked candidly about the future of the Kick-Ass franchise. Well, she says there isn't one. She explains to Digital Spy:
"Sadly, I think I'm done with the character. 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. 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."
According to Moretz, Kick-Ass 3 is dead, and that's because its fans refused to pay to see Kick-Ass 2. It's simple math for the feisty ingénue, she says, "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 theatre."
Piracy is undeniably a pest to movie studios. But is it really to blame for the failure of Kick-Ass 2? There were a number of factors that led to it flopping. First, there was Jim Carrey's refusal to promote the film, and furthermore his public statements that he is ashamed of having contributed to such a violent movie. Then, there was the Mark Millar controversy regarding his use of rape as a plot point in his comics. And let's not forget a massively different critical response from the first film.
While Kick-Ass earned a 76% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Kick-Ass 2 scored a dreadful 29%. Instead of "twisted fun," "defiantly irreverent and gleefully violent," this soiled sequel was called "tonally disasterous," "flat" and "disappointingly half-baked." There was even some debate as to whether or not the movie had ruined Hit-Girl.
But besides all that, it's unclear where Chloe Moretz is getting this figure that Kick-Ass 2 was the one of most pirated movie of 2013. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was, as were Django Unchained and Silver Linings Playbook. And yet those movies were all box office (not to mention critical) hits. Besides, Wired made the case that piracy wasn't hurting the box office, as 2013 was a robust year for films financially.
Maybe Chloe Moretz has been misinformed about Kick-Ass 2. Or maybe she's trying to rewrite its history, much like the makers of another flopped action-comedy, The Expendables 3, are desperate to do. Regardless, consider Kick-Ass 3 dead.
