Production of Kick-Ass

• What were the origins of the movie? - Done
• How much was the budget? - Done
• What studios were involved? - Done
• How was the movie funded? - Done
• How did they make a comic book movie into a live action film? - Done
• Was the comic changed at all? - Done
• What was the casting process? - Done
• Did Vaughn have complete control? - Done
• What limitations were there to making this film? - Done
• How did they achieve the 'look' that they wanted? - Done
• How were special effects used? - Done

Origins: 

In addition to this Romita designed the neighbourhood, schoolyard, settings and clothes to reflect his little world (Queens, New York City), most of it set in his neighbourhood. - Vaughn’s film based on the comic - No Power, no Problem! - Story of high school child, loves comics, wonders why no try with no power, terrible idea, dangerous - Teenage loser - Paul tried it, career option, story if they had the balls to do it, Miller came up with it to Romita, started differently, gamble, no money up front - Buzz, Vaughn came along to try a movie - Millar gave Vaughn a pitch, gave him a script of comic, Vaughn read it and immediately had an idea - Worked on both at same time - Script not fully written - Vaughn overtook script of comic, weirdly - finished at same time - film developing alongside comic - Autobiographical, based on teenage child. - Post-Modern, odd story, gripping, Ambition over Power.

Budget:

Estimated to be approximately between §28,000,000-§30,000,000, which is about £21,200,000-£22,800,000. 

Studios Involved:

Marv Films and Plan B Entertainment were the production companies for the film, with it being distributed by Lionsgate, in the United States, and Universal Pictures worldwide. The BMI also had a big influence on production as well as Irving Inc and Polydor. 

Funded:

Vaughn had a difficult time trying to film a production to help fund the company, particularly due to how much they wanted to change in the film, Vaughn even said that Sony particularly wanted to change the characters to make them much older, however sticking to his vision, he declined, he even labelled it himself as ‘the most expensive home movie he’s ever done!’. Vaughn, however, is such a believer in the project that he raised the money for the $30 million indie project himself. Vaughn had to do it alone, due to the lack of companies willing to accept the film.

Comic Book into Film:

This was done quite cleverly, Vaughn and Miller both started to produce and develops their own project simultaneously, meaning that the comic and film were both being developed at the same time. Miller even says that by Issue 3, Vaughn could go his separate way because he had not started writing the next 5 issues yet, so he could do his own project, allowing Vaughn a little freedom to do his own project because he longer needed to base it solely off the comic. Miller and Vaughn were given the scripts of both projects, and both disagreed with how to end the film, Miller wanted them to eventually meet, Vaughn opted against that. The Comic changed in some ways, Vaughn describes how in the film, the two protagonists meet and they spend the night together, however Miller decided that the lack of consequences in this scene did not advance the plot, so decided that instead of spending the night together, they argued and spent the night apart, with Dave receiving pictures to make him jealous. 

Casting Process:

Kick-Ass needed an ‘unknown’ actor according to Vaughn in order for the audience to see Kick-Ass as himself, rather than the actor. This made it difficult for Matthew to find the perfect actor, and he even wanted to postpone the film 6 months trying to find the perfect actor to play Kick-Ass. The two casting directors, Finn and Syson showed Matthew a video of Aaron Johnson, however he was originally discredited by Vaughn as he didn’t want a British actor to play the role. After watching the video, Vaughn was completely sold. He told Johnson to lose weight, and based his image on cult hero, Superbad. Moretz was more easier of a choice, and was based on Jodie Foster. Nic Cage was also chosen, however this is hardly a surprise as he is a huge fan of comic books and superhero films, so Cage wasn’t a difficult choice.

Limitations:

Trouble to find a production company for the film

Finding an actor for Kick-Ass

Possibly the fact the comic wasn’t produced - Could mean that Vaughn had nothing for him to base the film on, could end badly because other films had comics to base it on. 

Look/Special Effects:

A technical breakdown of a 90 seconds long animated 3D comic book sequence we did for “Kick-Ass” . We worked closely together with John Romita Jr. Romita and his team (Tom Palmer and Dean White) created comic book material that was used to execute this 3D animated comic book sequence.

Fido team:
VFX Supervisor: Mattias Lindahl
VFX Producer: Claes Dietmann
CG Supervisors: Anders Nyman, Andreas Karlsson
Modelling & Lookdev: Staffan Linder, Timmy Lundin, Peter Aversten, Marcus Forsberg
Compositing: Martin Borell, Daniel Norlund, Pontus Albrecht

Working again with director Matthew Vaughn, the Senate delivered 246 shots for Kick-Ass, ranging from green screen composites, matte painting set extensions and fight enhancements such as muzzle flashes, blood splats and CG sword all the way to compositing fire into a burning warehouse to turn pockets of flame into a raging inferno.