This weekend, somewhat out of the proverbial blue, actor Jim Carrey tweeted to his 10,000 plus followers that:
"I did Kickass a month b4 Sandy Hook and now in all good conscience I cannot support that level of violence. My apologies to others involve with the film. I am not ashamed of it but recent events have caused a change in my heart."
Carrey, a long-standing advocate of better gun-control, stars as fellow costumed vigilante Colonel Stars and Stripes in the Kick Ass sequel out in the US in August and a few weeks earlier in the UK. He filmed the role last year after stating he was a massive fan of the original film and comic and even appeared on the US talk-show Late Night with Conan O'Brien dressed as the character.
The first Kick-Ass was a film that divided critics. Though it was a solid adaptation of the source material, it was loved by fans of the original comic and the genre press but some mainstream papers saw it as an affront to a civilised society and inherently in danger of warping the minds of kids everywhere - or similar polarising sentiments. They said that the bad-language, including the word "c*nt" spoken by young star Chloe Moretz was merely there as controversy-fodder. While it's true that Mark Millar has often enjoys skirting the boundaries of the medium, pushing cultural buttons, twisting existing conventions and is well aware of the power of baiting controversy in marketing, he pointed out at the time of the original's release that people going in knew what to expect from the trailer and it was rated accordingly. Responding on the Millarworld blog last night he spoke of his respect for Carrey's work and for the right for the actor to express his opinions, but...
"As you may know, Jim is a passionate advocate of gun-control and I respect both his politics and his opinion, but I'm baffled by this sudden announcement as nothing seen in this picture wasn't in the screenplay eighteen months ago. Yes, the body-count is very high, but a movie called Kick-Ass 2 really has to do what it says on the tin. A sequel to the picture that gave us HIT-GIRL was always going to have some blood on the floor and this should have been no shock to a guy who enjoyed the first movie so much. My books are very hardcore, but the movies are adapted for a more mainstream audience and if you loved the tone of the first picture you're going to eat this up with a big, giant spoon. Like Jim, I'm horrified by real-life violence (even though I'm Scottish), but Kick-Ass 2 isn't a documentary.... Jim, I love ya and I hope you reconsider for all the above points. You're amazing in this insanely fun picture and I'm very proud of what Jeff, Matthew and all the team have done here."
You can read the full response following the link above.
Of course, as oithers have pointed out, the horrendous Sandy Hook massacre took place last year and it's strange that Carrey would wait until two months before release to randomly speak out about his feelings (too late to actively impact the Hook story, maybe too early to affect the main marketing) about a film that is set in such a smilar vein/tone to a movie he professed to love so much. It may well be that Carrey's controversy-fodder comments will draw even more attention to the project ahead of time and eventually increase the potential box-office rather than hurting it. It certainly has increased traffic to Millarworld and is currently a trending tag on twitter. On other words, priceless publicity.
Impact hasn't seen the sequel yet - we had some reservations about the degree of violence and languagge in the original but recognised it for the parody, love-letter to superheroes it was - so we can't say comment on the success of the sequel on a creative of financial level. Equally one has to note that Carrey's painstakingly distanced himself from the film, but said he's not disrespecting the people involved. But we do think there's a difference between parodying on-screen violence and condoning real-life violence and as long as the marketing honestly reflects the tone of a film, then it's up to the audience to decide for themselves.
No news yet on whether Conan O'Brien regrets his Superman stance.
This is the red-band trailer for Kick Ass 2 - warning, as the 'red-band' signifies, this is for mature audiences only...
