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‘Kick-Ass 2′ Star Jim Carrey Bashes Film’s Violence — Comics Writer/EP Mark Millar Hits Back

‘Kick-Ass 2′ Star Jim Carrey Bashes Film’s Violence — Comics Writer/EP Mark Millar Hits Back

UPDATE: Kick-Ass comics writer and Mark Millar, who exec produced both the 2010 film and its sequel, responded to Jim Carrey today on his own blog: “[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… This is fiction and like Tarantino and Peckinpah, Scorcese [sic] and Eastwood, John Boorman, Oliver Stone and Chan-Wook Park, Kick-Ass avoids the usual bloodless body-count of most big summer pictures and focuses instead of the CONSEQUENCES of violence… Our job as storytellers is to entertain and our toolbox can’t be sabotaged by curtailing the use of guns in an action-movie.”

PREVIOUSLY, SUNDAY PM: Jim Carrey gleefully puts down baddies with a baseball bat and an attack dog in Universal‘s Kick-Ass 2 as a vigilante named Colonel Stars and Stripes. (“Try to have fun – otherwise what’s the point?” he smirks in the film’s trailer.) But in light of December’s Sandy Hook mass shooting, the comic star has publicly denounced the film’s violent content – much of which involves the film’s two teenage protagonists. @JimCarrey: I did Kick-Ass 2 a month b4 Sandy Hook and now in all good conscience I cannot support that level of violence,” he Tweeted Sunday. “My apologies to others involve[d] with the film. I am not ashamed of it but recent events have caused a change in my heart.

The superhero sequel starring returning leads Aaron Johnson as Kick-Ass and Chloe Grace Moretz as Hit Girl based on Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr.’s comic books earned an R rating for strong violence, pervasive language, crude and sexual content, and brief nudity. Carrey is by far the biggest name star in the sequel’s cast. It’s unclear if retracting support for the film means he’ll drop out of promoting the summer flick altogether, but Universal’s August 16 release date is fast approaching.

Here’s the Kick-Ass 2 redband trailer:

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