On Kick-Ass 3. Millar: “Yeah absolutely. Kick-Ass 3 is going to be the last one though. I told Universal this and they asked me, ‘What does that mean?’ I said, ‘It means that this is where it all ends.’ They said, ‘Do they all die at the end?’ I said, ‘Maybe’ – because this is a realistic superhero story. And if someone doesn’t have a bullet proof vest like Superman and doesn’t have Batman’s millions then eventually he is going turn around the wrong corner and get his head kicked in or get shot in the face [laughs]. So Kick-Ass needs to reflect that. There has to be something dramatic at the end, he cannot do this for the rest of his life.”
On Dredd. Millar: “Alex Garland is a gigantic Dredd fan and I know there was originally a plan to make three Dredd films. The plan was to do a second one and then a really ambitious third movie. And the film itself… Yeah, I really enjoyed it. I saw it when it came out in the UK and by that time I knew it had not been a success in the US and I remember thinking it would probably find its audience on DVD, which it has. It was not hugely expensive either; I think it only cost $30 million so if it makes $60 million on DVD that’s pretty good. I hope we see a sequel. I know that the guys who made that film were really passionate about it. I loved Olivia Thirlby and Karl Urban, who did a great job of channeling Eastwood. The only thing that let it down was the direction – it was a wee bit TV movie – and Lena Headey wasn’t a great baddie either. But it was still great and I felt it deserved to be a bigger hit than it was.”
On The Dark Knight Rises. Millar: “I know there are different opinions on that movie. I thought it was interesting that when The Dark Knight came out it was just after the financial crash and you had this mass joblessness all over the Western world. I thought, ‘It is going to be quite hard to do a film about a billionaire hero who lives in a gigantic mansion and goes out to beat up poor people every night.’ Just think about it – Bruce Wayne is the guy who is firing people, he is not really one of us [laughs]. But to their credit they really tackled it in that movie. It was very, very timely: it was a tale of two cities and I thought it was on the side of the poor guys. When they were raiding the mansions and throwing people out on the street – and even at the end Bruce Wayne gave away his fortune. I thought Bane was the most compelling out of all the villains – right from the start I thought, ‘this guy is great.’ I thought the only thing that let it down a bit was the action: Nolan should go to movie jail for the Bane vs Catwoman thing at the end. But the rest of the movie was so brilliant that you could easily forgive him. I liked it better than The Avengers.”
What's pretty interesting here is the talk of a planned Judge Dredd trilogy. Millar got his start at 2000 A.D. so he just may be in the know concerning the intended film plans. Recently, there was news of
Dredd doing extremely well on home video but there hasn't been a financial assessment of the purported numbers. We should have a clearer picture on the Dredd sequel prospects sometime later this year.
Also, what Millar says about a third Kick-Ass film should clue you in to the ultimate fate of Dave Lizewski, right?
Overall, a great interview from the staff at SFX. You can support them by ordering the latest issue of the magazine by clicking
HERE. Kick-Ass 2 hits theaters Jun 28th 2013.
Dredd and
The Dark Knight Rises are available on various home video formats right now.
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