Kick-Ass (film series)

Kick-Ass is an American superhero comedy film series, based on the comic book of the same name by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr. Its premise is that teenager Dave Lizewski, being inspired by his interest in comic book superheroes, sets out to become a real-life superhero, calling himself "Kick-Ass", and joins forces with "Hit-Girl" and "Big Daddy" to keep the streets of New York City safe and take down the criminal D'Amico family.

Kick-Ass 3
A fourth graphic novel named Kick-Ass 3 was released in 2013 and intended to close the story of both Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl. Millar has stated that if Kick-Ass 2 is successful, a third film will go into production soon. Taylor-Johnson, Moretz, and Mintz-Plasse have all stated they would reprise their roles for a third film with Moretz stating "I want to see something we haven't seen yet. Now we've seen who Mindy is, now we've seen who Hit-Girl is, I think we need to meld the characters together and have Mindy become Hit-Girl and Hit-Girl become Mindy. Maybe her natural hair has a streak of purple in it, maybe she really does go kind of crazy and go a bit darker since she lost her father." She also added, "I would only do the third one if it was logical. It needs to be a good script and a director, probably Matthew (Vaughn). The third film needs to fully wrap up the series and has to be a good note to end on." On 30 August 2013, Millar says that the film is in the pipeline. While at a press conference for Godzilla, Taylor-Johnson stated that he was prepared to act in a third film, but he wasn't contracted for it and that there weren't plans for one at the time.

In May 2014, while promoting his new film Neighbors, Christopher Mintz-Plasse said that he hadn't heard anything about a new film, but expressed doubt that a third would be made due to the second installment's disappointing box office performance. In June 2014, Chloë Grace Moretz echoed her co-stars sentiments when asked about Kick-Ass 3, stating that "I hope, I wish. That'd be fun. That'd be great. I doubt it but I would love it". She also cited the second film's lower box office gross as the key obstacle to the third chapter being produced and suggested file sharing was a factor: "The hard thing is if fans want a third movie, they’ve got to go buy the ticket to go see the movie. It was like the second most pirated movie of the year, so if you want a movie to be made into a second, a third, a fourth and a fifth, go buy a ticket. Don’t pirate it.” In August 2014, Moretz told Digital Spy, "Sadly, I think I'm done with the character... 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. 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." In June 2014, Millar confirmed that the plans for Kick-Ass 3 will indeed move forward as the fan base is strong enough for interest to be sustained. In August 2014, Millar confirmed that the plan has always been to make three films based off the three books. In August 2014, Millar said a third film is still up in the air and that it's ultimately Matthew Vaughn's decision as he has the film rights.

In June 2018, Vaughn announced various films in development under his new film studio, among those projects is a third Kick-Ass film.

Hit-Girl
In January 2015, Millar revealed that there was a planned Hit-Girl film with Gareth Evans directing, but the film got cancelled. On 11 February 2015, Vaughn did talk about writing the third film, hoping to bring back Taylor-Johnson and Moretz to finish the film's story and even wanted to do the Hit-Girl film as a prequel first. He stated "If that happens, I’m pretty sure I can persuade Aaron and Chloe to come back and finish the story of Kick-Ass." He also confirmed that he would not be the director of Kick-Ass 3 though. On 17 June 2015, Vaughn stated in an answer to Yahoo that he is working on a prequel on how Hit-Girl and Big Daddy became superheroes and plans to make Kick-Ass 3 after that. He stated that, "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. I think we've got to do this prequel to regain the love that we had with Kick-Ass."

In June 2018, Vaughn discussed the projects he is developing under his new film studio, and Hit-Girl is moving forward, though the director stated that the film's plot is still being finalized. Later that month, Moretz stated that she had lost interest in reprising the character in either Kick-Ass 3 or the Hit-Girl spin-off due to the negative reception of the second film.