Kick-Ass (2010)

So today I am introducing Kick-Ass after a very long, drunk evening at the world premiere. And I'm looking at the new Marv logo, which was designed by my son, Caspar, and daughter, Clementine, due to the fact that Marvel thought we were trying to copy them, even though Marv is my initials and it's been named my company for quite a long time. But they're the big bad wolf, so we decided to play ball with them. Marius, one of the composers, came up with the idea of the radio sort of from the 50s, 60s, everything that was what we thought was the beginning of the superhero culture. And the music here is, I'm very proud of the music. It took us about eight months to get it right and four composers. And we wanted to do what we call a sort of a John Williams-style score, which then morphs into a modern kick-ass identity, shall we say. And Henry Jackman wrote this theme, which I'm not gonna say what they are, but listen to them. And then he wrote a theme on top of them and made me very happy. So thank you, Henry. We all wanted to be a superhero.

And this was the first scene that we previzzed... ...and it's literally shot for shot from the comic. We took out the line of, ah, fuck, after he says wings to Manuel... ...because I thought it gave away the gag of what was gonna go wrong. I thought it was more funny having the impact coming out of nowhere. I'm kick-ass. And both of these scenes were shot in Canada. This is Hamilton. And here's Aaron Johnson, Wonder Boy. British, if you don't know, he's an English kid. English director, so I think it's a miracle that we managed to make it feel legitimately American. This was the hardest scene to grade for some reason. We just couldn't make it pop. The next five reels, six reels, we were very happy with, but this reel, I mean, it looks great now, but I think it took us eight attempts. My only superpower was being invisible to girls. On Blu-ray, it's gonna look much better, because film can't... We did a DI grade, which film can't quite cope with, but HD can, the way of the future. Clark and Evan, who are Marty and Todd, they were in the first ever read-through. Before I go out to the public with a script, when I say the public, Hollywood, I like to do one read-through with the actors. So I actually flew to LA and I said to the casting director, just get me some, kids, you know, some American actors, so I wanted to make sure it feels American, so I didn't look like an idiot putting the script into the system. And we ended up casting Clark Duke and Evan as Todd and Marty, Lindsay as Katie, and Amari as Marcus, and Garrett Brown as the father of Dave, otherwise known as Kick-Ass. So, yeah, so that was... I think, a sign. Everything seemed always to fall into place, but then I sent the script to Hollywood and everyone said no, which wasn't part of the plan, but turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because I could promise you this movie would not be as... be as original and as fun and risqué as it is if Hollywood had their wicked way. Just Mrs. Z. Sorry. But don't get me wrong. I like girls my own age, too. especially katie doma hey gorgeous hey oh no uh uh you meant erica uh i know i knew that i was just kidding okay cool oh my god as you see this is a great chemistry between the I think all the actors, but especially the three of those. I mean, considering Clark and Evan have hardly anything to do in the movie, people still notice them. I was just a regular guy. No radioactive spiders, no refugee status from a doomed alien world. That is Elizabeth McGovern from some of my favorite movies. About to die on cue. Very sweet of her to do that. And, uh... This whole sequence is funny. I mean, everyone who saw the movie, some of the Hollywood guys, when we were trying to set it, they were all saying to cut out the first 20 minutes. And I was just like, okay, guys, okay, it's not a big action movie yet. But the whole point about this film, which I think is important, it's about character. It's about being able to relate and wish fulfillment. So I really wanted to set up his world and just be a bit braver. I mean, I always watch Deer Hunter once or twice a year just to remind me that you can You can be brave. I think films are better if they start slow and speed up compared to other movies that you start at 10 out of 10 and there's only one way to go from there. So this is a set. We shot this in Pinewood. And about three days before we shot it, it was still pouring with rain and the set was sort of flooded. had real problems. And when I say a set, we got told it was impossible to create what we created because it was just scaffolding. And Russell Rosario, I'll have to call him the costume designer, the production designer, did a brilliant job. In fact, I think someone should open a comic store like this. The idea of a diner-stroke comic book store would be a place I think my son and I would go to. Here is the kid that does not like to be called McLovin. And I think maybe in this movie, it might be him coming out of that shell. And Stu, I don't know if Stu's character had a name, but Stu's the big man behind him. It felt very uncomfortable saying, fuck off. He's very polite and sweet. So I had to really goad him a bit to give it a bit more of balls. Unlike these two, wouldn't swear for troopers. Dave should go. Why? Dave, you should totally go. Go. You're a dick. Don't be afraid, Dave. You're a pussy. This is a piece of score we wrote, literally. I mean, a lot of this music we did in the last week. We had a source track here, and then I turned on TV, and it had become, I think, a Renault adverts music. So I thought, forget that. So Marius rescued us and wrote a new piece of music. Well done, Marius, again. So this was actually the bank in the bank job that got stolen. So this is a British street that we then tried to make look like New York. And now we're back in Hamilton. Lovely Canada. So it's funny, I was going to say how I've got lots of really lovely previews that we did for this scene. So when they look up at the... at the guy in the window and then he shuts the curtains and originally the camera was gonna go up and New York changes into nighttime. We fly across New York and come down and meet Frank. But either it was too expensive or it was too, I mean, the thing is he could come up with lots of, I think, as a director you think is brilliant ideas, but then they're a bit pretentious and slow. So then you cut them out to keep the pace up. Here we created this scene from another scene. Everyone was saying, where did he get the costume from when it arrived? So that's actually a shot of him wanking, believe it or not. But we decided to make it look like he was buying. That's why we didn't use shock. We had to cut to that, because before the camera was floating across New York and then came down to this shot. But anyway, people haven't seemed to complain so far. Kicks our asses. It steals all the coke. This would be the guy that looks like Batman. I didn't say he looked like Batman. The wonderful Mark Strong. In fact, all the boys were a delight to work with on this film. And obviously here is sort of getting to the gangster territory. I feel a little bit more comfortable and I can relax just a tad on set because I've sort of done this many a time before. And I had true prose. According to him, you sold him my car. I mean, to be able to keep a foreshot like that, I mean, it's so much better than lots of quick editing. tracking and pushing the cameras is for no reason or hand-held. It's happening a lot at the moment. But you need to have four good actors to pull it off, and they've got four very good ones. Dexter Fletcher on the right, he'll do anything possible. Him and Fleming, who you'll be seeing in a second. They'll try and steal any scene. They know where to look, even there. Look, on the right. Straight down the lens there.

Dancing on Ice is filmed on that stage normally, which we converted into a warehouse. We're only gonna miss the trainers. Yeah, but I wanna get some popcorn. This is the scene I argued a lot whether to keep in. I kept cutting it out, but Jane insisted that it set the tone for the violence and comedy at the same time. Like when they mix the red one and the blue one. I like it. I mean, they're good, but they... Yeah. Look, it works, so it's in, so hey-ho.

This is Primal Scream. We had a scene in the script where you actually see everyone watching a Spider-Man movie or a superhero film. But we decided we couldn't. I thought, you know what, I'm not going to have a clear, real footage. I thought it would be much cooler than seeing all the different characters in the cinema and how they react. So this is where you start hearing his theme again, properly. And here, this is our love letter to a John Williams-style score. Obviously heavily influenced by Superman. And I think this scene illustrates how difficult to get this movie right, because if we pitched it one degree left or right, this would really be an embarrassing piece of crap to watch. You are fucking awesome. Come on, bring it on. This scene, obviously, this is the moment where I know if I haven't got the audience intrigued. This is my ace in the hole every time. And this is the scene that Hollywood said they could never shoot, or I could never shoot. It's the first day of filming. We're in a Victorian sewer, which stank. So I think we shot the scene in about four and a half hours, because we just couldn't breathe. And Nick Cage is a great, great actor. The music actually is the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and I heard a version played by the Royal Marines, and we were thinking of making all their, every time we listened to their music, make it sort of the Southern, or the Civil War sort of marching music, because it's brilliant. If you listen to the actual melodies, they're very strong and haunting, and as we'll see later, Elvis Presley's version of the battle hymn, which is in the American trilogy we use. And so I thought, well, I don't want that to pop out of nowhere. So we did actually just hear it then for the first time. It's sort of, I call it Big Daddy's minor theme. But again, this is an example of a scene that if we got it one pitch wrong, we would have been in big trouble. Have you thought a little more about what you might want? But Cage is brave enough to, as I said, just, you know, make sure it's a real sweet father-daughter relationship. And the fact that her idea of a doll is a balisong knife or horse riding is getting shot. What? And Chloe, second girl that we screen tested and within about, I don't know, A minute I knew I'd found her. She's watching the birth of a star, which is a good feeling. Hopefully in 10 years you'll still be a very balanced person. So here is theme just the beginning, but musically I wanted to change it I thought this was like the Rocky training montage. So this was co-written by Marius and Elan. And I said, look, start classically and then build it and get a bit more funky. But they did a good job. And I tried to... We didn't have the money to do it how I wanted to shoot this, but we got as damn near as I could with the equipment we had. I wanted to... from here on up here, go shot for shot like Spider-Man. So some of these shots you will recognize, but the last one, I couldn't do the camera following him from the back and then swooping up when he jumps, because we didn't have the equipment or the money. But independent filmmaking, there's not much I can do about that. Fuck! I think it works. Sometimes it's good not to have money because you have to think harder and sometimes you get better ideas. Okay, so this is the scene which I... So I thought it was called turning the thumbscrews. It's sort of like now we're really starting the, you know, I think up to now it's been just, you know, we're laying down the groundwork and now we're building. And the most important, oh that's straight from Superman, by the way, that shot. But here, the plan was, he looks ridiculous. make the actor laugh, then the audience now know that they can laugh as well, and not feel rude for laughing at or with the film. And I decided, you know, and here he's trying to be a hero, but what's really important is I was paranoid. The biggest dilemma for me making this film was, is any kids gonna copy this? I was terrified that, that's, you know, The don't, I shall say it now. Do not copy this at home, kids. But what I can say is the reason do not copy it at home is you're going to see what happens. And I decided to shoot this as brutally as I could so that it didn't leave any doubt in anyone's minds that this is not a good idea.

Yeah, I mean, I actually had major, major arguments with Ben, the DP, about this, because he wants to... I think, you know, when you read the script, you think, oh, this is edgy, gritty filmmaking. Let's shoot it edgy and gritty. But I thought, no, I thought, let's just shoot it like a Spider-Man glossy Hollywood film and let the grit and the edge come from what's on screen. It'll be far more impactful. And I think it worked.

I'm also a big believer if you can see what's happening on screen, you can enjoy it a lot more. DPs don't sometimes understand that, but... No offense to Mac, but... You can spend a lot of money sometimes just to have darkness, which I find a bit weird, but anyway. That's for another DVD. And here we cut... a really fun sequence of him, straight from the comic, of him hallucinating and having sex with spiders and stuff, but A, we couldn't afford it, but B, we just wanted to keep the pace up. Now we'll meet my lucky talisman, Jason Fleming. He's the actor on the right. I only made one movie without him and that was swept away, so he's gonna be in them all, hopefully.

And that is the town that used to be the... ...GLC headquarters in London. That's actually the production designer there, the fat guy. He's now thin, so I can say that. He's must have lost 100 pounds. It's like, unreal. Now we're in the art world. I thought it'd be cooler. This is a whole set we built. I thought, wouldn't it be great to have it instead of... You know, you always see the gangsters living in sort of... Donald Trump-style naffness. And I thought maybe it would be more fun to give him actually an apartment that I would actually want to live in, and that he used all his ill-gotten gains to buy first-class modern art. And we've got Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol, Mark Quinn, Ed Ruscha. And that's actually a painting, believe it or not, of OJ Simpson's Bronco, from his point of view, being chased on that famous day. I was just gonna sit in there quietly. I mean, I should probably start learning this stuff anyway, right? Hey, go finish your oatmeal. God damn it! I'm gonna be 18 in eight months, for Christ's sakes! Basically, I'm colorblind, and I saw Orange one day, and I just thought, like... I thought he needed something which would just make it more, you know... I think Mark came in the costume fitting and he had an orange shirt on. I went, hold on, let's make you obsessed with Orange, so therefore he has the orange desk. And I said, copy the Hermes sort of orange. And it was one of those things. It just happened. And I can see orange. I think I can see orange. So it became a character trait. And the idea of me doing a colored trait is not really me. But anyway, it happened once. Those are Andy Warhol guns. I think they're beautiful. And this was a really important shot because I just wanted to make sure now that you understood how that these characters are involved in each other's storyline. So I came up with the idea of, because John Romita actually drew that, but obviously he's brainwashing Mindy by making her think she lives in the world of comics. And word of advice, you don't want him drawing you because you're in trouble. She will happily cut you to pieces if you're in the comic book.

So we thought that was a good way of linking the two worlds. That's all the gangsters out there. Chloe was, as there's not many 11-year-old stunt girls out there, we had to sort of train Chloe up, and she learned all this in two months. I mean, as you can see, she's literally doing it. It's a Filipino. Ask me another. Excellent, good. The AR-15 was a lighter, smaller caliber. Look at that. No visual effects there. Eugene Stoners Ayrton. Now give me a hard one. I think we're playing, is it Rossini? We decided, we also like the idea that, you know, Frank's trying to be sophisticated, so he plays classical music all the time. So we decided, as we've sort of gone away from Dave for a long time, I just felt, you know what, let's just put one piece of classical music the whole way through, and it's great. I don't want to see any of you bitches sitting around on your asses, all right? The fuck you... Hello? Hey, Joe, yeah. He's just training right now. One second. Dad! Phone! Dad, the phone's for you. Who is it? It's Joe. What's the problem? Yeah, it's fake. Turns out we ain't got the vice here no more. Really? Uh-uh. But we do got a brand-new industrial microwave. I don't know what made me come up with the microwave idea. It was... I sometimes worry about my own sanity, but... I read online that how these... Oh, no, we were going to have him being done in sort of a grinder. Put his balls in a vice, and then I remember they did that in casinos, so I thought we have to figure out a different way of torturing someone, and then I found out that you can get these huge microwaves for drying out wood and other usage. So some sick part of my brain thought let's put a man inside and see what happens. Apparently you don't actually explode, but it's a bit more cinematic. There's Dexter trying to steal the scene. Dexter's not on the shot there, amazing. Who sold you So we designed that to look like Wolverine as much so I could get away with it. It's called parody Marvel. Parody at that point. Can't get sued if you say parody, guys. What a world we live in. Dave, I need to ask you something. Okay. The police report? They found you naked. You said you didn't remember why. The muggers, they didn't. What? No. Jesus. No, I wasn't even... When Garrett read, I just said, God, you're just sort of a man. He reminded me of Fozzie Bear. If you look at him. Do you remember Fozzie Bear from The Muppets? Everyone loves Fozzie Bear, so I thought, hey. So... I say that as a compliment, Garrett. Dave's what? Apart from some messed up nerve endings, the doctors have managed to fix me up pretty good. Did you feel that? No. You're like fucking Jason Bourne or something, man, that owns. How about that? No, Marty. Give it a fucking rest, man. I've only been back like half a day and you're already making me kind of miss the hospital. He's right, I'm sorry. I'm acting totally childish. The one thing that I try to do, because Hollywood's so silly how the casting process, they sort of cast everyone individually. Or they'll say, hey, let's put George Clooney together with Tom Hanks. That's going to be great. And then it might not be great. You have to see chemistry. It's either there or it isn't. You can't create it. And it's naturally done. So the way I cast is I don't actually cast anyone until I get them all in a room. And I sort of mix and match. And it's pretty tough, because some poor kids got get very close to getting a role, but then you put them with one person that doesn't work, so you then take that person out, put another person in, and then that's better, but then, you know, it's like having, I don't know, best way is like playing dominoes, but it worked well in the end, but it's tough. I wouldn't want to be an actor casting for me, because I really put them through a wringer, because it makes me look a lot better if they're good. All I've got to do is get them in focus. So the chemistry was naturally there.

Now, this was the biggest bugger of all the scenes in the movie because there's a thing called a rent boy in England. And that's a guy that's like a male prostitute is the best way of describing it. And the term rent boy means nothing in America. So all this gag has never really landed because they think he's a rent boy because he was found sort of naked on the street because of the rumors. But rent boy, but gay wasn't really the joke I wanted. But it's the only thing that we... We tried male prostitute. That didn't work. So this was a moment in the movie. This is the bit where I cringe the most in the film. But I wish Americans knew what the term rent boy was. But they don't. No, not if she thinks he's gay, Todd. Because it could look like we're trying to have her thinking it's funny, taking the piss out of gays. But we weren't. It was a rent boy that we were trying to. But hey, that's probably the only time you'll ever hear me apologize. I should have quit, of course. because you can't just reprogram yourself. What you want, who you are, your purpose in life. Oh, no, I'm just standing around, you know. See, Aaron, like, this scene's important, because you just have to remind the audience he's a doofus teenager, you know? I think all teenagers do this, but they don't actually have a costume, so... And I just thought, you know, have fun with it, and then the audience are gonna like him and want him to do well. and fill, you know, gotta fill for your lead character. Whenever I write scripts, I always look at Star Wars as well. For me, he's Luke Skywalker. He's sort of the dull character that is full of wish fulfillment that you could be like, and Chloe is Han Solo, well, Hit Girl's Han Solo, and Big Daddy is Chewbacca. They're the cool characters you wanna be, but I think if you had too much of them, you'd get sick of them as well. I got an argument with my editor. He thought it was funny. He was thinking, then, did you see this cat? And they're implying that they just ate it. Which I didn't think was that funny a joke, but it was John Harris' one. I thought, I was like, why would that? And he's saying all Koreans eat cats. I said, no, that's true. So that was an editor thing, not me. Oh, great. So we shot this scene in Toronto. I was furious, because the first day we turned up, the so-called gangsters... I mean, my mother would have been more threatening. So I threw them... I cancelled shooting that day. We had to recast, and... It was quite hard, because Canada is quite... Everyone's nice in Canada. It's quite hard to find people that even know how to look threatening. But we finally got there. This cat was pretty cool, by the way. It did as it was told, which I thought would never happen. So we shot this, and we thought... The second unit asked for five days for this scene, and then we decided to do it, and we shot it in two. Thanks, freak. These guys, all four of them deserve a round of applause. Five of them, even, sorry. I'm kidding, Aaron. I mean, they kicked the crap out of each other. It's... For two whole days, I felt guilty about it, but they were... In the end, we couldn't do close-ups. They had lumps all over them. They just went for it. And Aaron's stupid enough to let them keep punching him, and he'd punch them back. And it was, I mean, Aaron was so committed. Like, on the stabbing scene, the sound guy, we got this guy called, I don't know if he, called Purple Haze, and he's insane. And he had a breastplate on to make sure the knife didn't hurt him, and apparently the breastplate was ruffling and ruining the sound. So without telling anyone, he took it out. And at the end of the day, Aaron took his costume off, and he had about 30 little cuts all over his stomach from every time he got stabbed. And I was like, Aaron, you should have said something. He went, well, didn't want to ruin the scene. So a very committed crew and actors on this film. I mean, we knew we were doing something different, and we'd taken on the system. So we wanted to win. This is the prodigy. who also did the song for the opening as well, who I think are an incredibly talented band. Now here we start hearing the theme, but we're getting more modern with it. We're getting away from the orchestral stuff. This is more sort of a Brian Eno-style version of it. What the fuck is wrong with you, man? You'd rather die for some piece of shit that you don't even fucking know. In the script, the scene wasn't in there, and I suddenly just thought, hold on. Now there was no dialogue, and I thought, this isn't strong enough. So we were feverishly writing. It's five in the morning, freezing cold, and these three guys are stuntmen, so I think he was thrilled suddenly he got dialogue. You're fucking crazy, kid. Thank you. What? Thank you. That guy's called Hugo, I think. And for some reason, he decided not to. We wanted to shoot some, we had one more scene always prepared for him. He just disappeared off the face of the earth and didn't want to work with us anymore. Charming. Dude, you gotta check this shit out. What is it? And coming up after the hour, a costume vigilante has become the latest internet phenomenon after a Hamilton Park... These are real newscasters on CBS, and it was quite funny. They all refused to say the word kick-ass. Which was a real bugger to turn up to do all this and stuff. And they just wouldn't say kick ass. And then we found one guy that normally doesn't get to sit at their roaming reporter. So he said he'd do it because I think he was desperate to get behind a desk for the first time. But we will see him when he says it. And he goes, kick ass. It's funny. He couldn't even say it. Which is weird. But anyway. We cut one. We'll see when we get there. Actually, I'll explain them. And this is an important thing, because, you know, this is a... How many people are getting famous having no talent on Google and YouTube just because they, I don't know, they sit in a cat or something? So I thought it was time to, you know, at least we can, you know, I thought let's get famous for doing something good. Craig Ferguson, I think the most talented chat show host in America right now. Scottish. I don't know how he managed to conquer them, but he has. And he saw the film and loved it and it was game on. So thank you, Craig. So here I'm always, I knew how to shoot the scene as I was writing the scene. I love the idea of just a circular track going around every, all the characters again. I just think it's so important to remind the audience that they're all in it together. And you know, it's building up to that point where all those characters come together. And I then cut before we wipe through this pillow and we're going to, there's a scene between Kick-Ass and his dad and his dad gives him the taser. But it was just, again, it was style over content. We didn't need it. When we do the director's cut, or it won't be the director's cut, this is the director's cut, when we do the extended try and make more money cut, I'll put those scenes in.

Someone told me an expression of audition scenes are the hardest thing to film, and they're right. So this was one of the main audition scenes, as you can imagine, to check the chemistry between these two characters. So by the time we finally shot it for real, it was a lot of prodding each other to try and be interested. I mean, I could really use some help from a guy like that right now. Help? Really? What with? But they did a good job. You know I volunteer at the needle exchange. No, I didn't. Well, there's this one guy, Razul, and I just, I felt so sorry for him. And the more I found out about his upbringing and stuff, I just... Wow, that's weird. I'm usually the one playing therapist. Can I make a confession? Ever since I was little, I've always wanted a friend like you. Is it okay to say that? I mean, that's not homophobic, is it? I mean, I don't think you're all the same or anything. It's a big laugh suddenly. Suddenly the gay thing makes people laugh. Which is good. So this piece of music here was written by Danny Elfman. Danny was kind enough. I showed him the film earlier. I was really struggling about how to break the code of what the music should be like. And, um... To my amazement, he just wrote a couple of tunes, and he wrote one for this, which I thought was fantastic. This particular lame duck of hers turned out to be more of a lame cobra. Yeah, I know there's some movies that haven't used Danny's music, and they must have been morons, because I think he's a genius, and it's a cool piece of music, so thank you, Danny Elfin. No other request could have given me more pleasure.

So this scene, the way we designed this, I mean, this is straight out of the comic, but I was just like, now that we've seen it always keep going wrong for him, I just thought you now want to put him in a really dangerous position, so the audience are just like, oh, no. And as you'll see, when he walks in the door, the music becomes much more serious. And Marius just came up with this. Before we had rap, and then Marius wrote this piece of music. I just thought, hey, this is cool and menacing and horrible. I decided not to put rap in it, because I think it distracted you from the scene. It's really funny. There's a lot of people complain to me that that guy you see in there who's smoking the bong, that he's some innocent victim getting killed. And I'm like, what are you talking about? How do you know he's some innocent victim? He might have been out hacking people to death, you know, and doing some horrible drug deals. before he came back to his den. So it's funny how people decided that he was innocent. But hey, we all have different levels of tolerance. Katie Doma? Katie? Oh, you're Azul? Okay, you gotta stay away from Katie now. It's over. So if you just leave her alone, everything will be fine. What? Yo, kid. Who the hell are you? And what is this? I'm Kick-Ass. Look me up. And this is me giving you a message. Leave Katie alone. So all of this was modeled on the costumes, hairstyles, set design. Everything was tried to lift it as much out of the comic book. Or what? So my rule is be as close to the source material as possible, but also make sure you don't lose the fact that you've got to make a good film. So here, this time he goes, I'm going to break your fucking legs. That's meant to be like, oh, no. What has this moron gone and said? So you're playing it now like, OK, he is fucked. Boom. And then this one gets a huge laugh. Makes me laugh, actually. I think the idea of being tased in the forehead is so stupid that it has to be funny. But now you should be thinking, okay, well, that was cool, but when he picks up the knife, we've seen what happens to kick ass with knives before, so you need that moment for this point. So when that sword comes through his chest, you're like, A, what the fuck, B, thank God. And then C, quite literally, the C-bomb explodes. Okay, you cunts. Now, I'm sure you guys can imagine, there was a lot of debate of whether she should say, see you next Tuesday. And it was in the comic book. So we decided to, you know, thought we've got to be brave. She's a trained assassin. I doubt the Navy SEALs in Afghanistan get told off for swearing when they're blowing up the Taliban. So the same rules apply to her. And here, the song, I suddenly thought it'd be quite interesting to put kids' music over this scene. So we put like Scooby-Dooby-Doo and stuff on it, but it was actually too surreal. And also I suppose really important in the scene is to make sure it's mainly shot from Kick-Ass's point of view, but more importantly, we're seeing her smile. And so when she's looking at him, she's like a little kid saying, hey, am I doing good? Am I doing good? Is that good? And he's like, fuck no, I've got no idea. But that's what makes you like her. Here's my Indiana Jones sort of, it's a little bit of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Temple of Doom. We'd take both gags, put them into one. 80s were very important to me for films, as you might have noticed, and 70s. But music-wise, anyway, so the kids' music, but it was just too much, and I'd always liked the Tra La La song, which was from the Banana Splits, and so I looked up on the web and just tried to find different versions of it. Then I heard the Dickies, I think it was an L.A. punk band, who did this version, and I thought, hey, you know what? I told the composers I wanted bubblegum punk, and I found it. So Hit Girl's all about bubblegum punk. And that two daggers coming through, that's straight out of the comic. Oh, dude, that is one gay-looking taser. Relax, we're on the same team. Now we remind the audience that he really is a big daddy in the sense he's a good daddy as well. That even... And she put, you know, he's always looking after her. That's what I think, after all that craziness, we now have a scene where you still see they're a great father and, you know, father and daughter. I say they're the cross between the Simpsons and the Osbournes. In a sense you think they're all nuts, but you still like them. Now here we're getting into, we're about to hear Big Daddy's theme. for the first time. It's just four notes. This is John Murphy. Murphy is the king of anything to do with guitars. I mean, the guy is insane. We say, look, John, we need just a simple guitar rift, and he'll bring you something that's got 27 guitars being all laid on top of each other, and then he'll listen to it and go, that's not good enough, and put another 10 on. But we're going, it is good enough, but he's a perfectionist. He's a scouser and nuts, but cool. Who are you? Me? I'm Hit-Girl. And that's Big Daddy. Hopefully you don't notice the visual effects in this film, because this is, um, you know, we didn't shoot it in New York. I mean, these are all sound stages, and we put New York in in the background and stuff, and, you know, DNA did the work, and I think they did a fantastic job. We had hardly any money. I mean, I think we ended up, I think we budgeted for 100 visual effects shots. We ended up doing 820 and, uh, around 820, and, um, You know, they did a good job. I know that is my wife. I'm not trying to show off, guys, but it was just because no corporate... I hate having fake posters up on billboards when you make movies, and for some reason, no corporation wanted to have their logo on there, so I decided for the 99.9% recurring people who don't know who my wife is, they'd think that's a proper perfume advert. This is really important. This is sort of like... in Layer Cake, you know, the moment where you see that Daniel didn't enjoy killing people and was freaked out and took off his helmet. Sort of repeated the trick here. But you have to do this because you have to feel sympathy and empathy with him. Now you bring back the gangsters to show the danger is there. That's Big Daddy's theme. Four notes. Which they do some very, very cool. I mean, Murphy... And Henry Jackman, they took those four notes and just did some unbelievably cool stuff. We'll get to that. But just remember, it's just four notes. Not as cool as the Joker theme with one note, but four's not bad. I think it's that superhero nutjob from the TV. Who? Kick-ass? Ginger Goon. He was fantastic. He cut all this good stuff out because we changed a whole lot of the plot later. But... He's great, he's really, really funny, and you don't see all his funny stuff annoyingly. I think he has about eight sugars in his espresso. I always thought it was like, look at that. Ridiculous. Raspoli, by the way, is technically that Michael who played him. He is, well, both these guys are geniuses, but Michael is so technical. It was amazing how he'd hit his mark. On a stick, and I want it now.

This is where the banana skin could have really applied. This was Nick Cage's idea to do the Adam West-style voice, because we were discussing how Batman hides his... If you're going to go to the full extent of wearing a costume, you would also hide your voice. Nick came up with Adam West, and it was a stroke of genius, although one of the editors, when they saw the rushes, were like, you have to reshoot this scene, this will not work, I can't cut around this, it's just... Dreadful idea. But I said, this movie's all about being brave and we've got nothing to lose and let's do it. I rerouted your IP address. Finding you was way too easy. And I've learned this, you know, the braver we've been with the movie, the better it's become and the more people are appreciating it. So you're hearing the four notes with Big Daddy's theme. But before you hear it on guitar now, it's a bit more serious and cellos and double bass. It's fucking insane. I'm in way over my head. It's a shame. You have potential. Your call. But you know we're around if you need us. Well, it was interesting. Now, when she says this line, she felt uncomfortable. It didn't say... He has a special signal that shines in the sky. It's in the shape of a giant cock. So we changed it. It was meant to be a giant chicken. He goes, like a chicken? And she goes, yeah. But then we thought, you know what? Unnecessary. Sweet dreams. Sweet dreams. She is good though, isn't she? Aaron looks like a 10-year-old baby in this scene. Always worries me. See the beginning of that shot? It looks like he's frozen. There's some really weird thing there. We could never figure out why it was. But I'm afraid I can't help you out on this one. A little bit outside my jurisdiction. Outside your jurisdiction? You're a fucking cop and he's breaking the law. That's so inside your jurisdiction, it's ball deep in your jurisdiction's ass. Cezanne de Berkeley big fan of his from right from Terminator 2 all the way up to 24 and sadly his part got cut a lot so we had to speed things up and there was just too many characters but he did some really good stuff this is my uh Dexter plays Cody in Layer Cake and the last time we see him in Layer Cake he's a con man at who drives off in the Yellow Range Rover as a perk. So I just thought it'd be funny just to see him again now in a Yellow Range Rover. And I thought, it's now time to move on from Layer Cake. And here's a good visualization of a way of saying that movie's over. It's time to do something new. We only had one low-budget film, so we could only crush it once. The machine was absolutely... The noise this machine made was terrifying. What a douche. But it was fun. You haven't done South Town before, right? Now, this scene was the worst day of filming I've ever done. in my life. I mean, normally I do four takes. I think we did about 60 on this. I probably shouldn't say that, but that's the truth. Oh, hey, I read those old Ditko Spider-Mans you gave me. They're actually pretty good. Yeah, they are. And it's been a whole week since I've heard from Razul. That's great.

This is Amari. The whole point about this scene, you're thinking, oh shit, a cop's just broken in and you're just, you know, you need to put what I call a reality figure into this madness of their apartment and their life. And that's what Marcus is. And this is where we see the real Damon. First of all, you know, we see their backstory in the second on the comic book. But secondly, you know, this is, it's very important to put balance in and this is, the barometer of normality. Now, this was a bugger to get this. Bringing a comic book to life, guys, is impossible. We thought that this took us two years, because we were either looking like a bad video game, or that we looked like a bad cartoon. And we only cracked this, we delivered this about three weeks ago as well, and it just took time. Because John Romita Jr., he drew it, but he's only used to drawing 2D. So doing 3D moves were hard and... I mean, I think it's really cool what we ended up with, but there was a moment I thought this was gonna be laughable. And we didn't have the money to shoot it for real. That's why it's a comic book anyway, but that's an example of money suddenly making you come up with a better idea. Mindy was born. Marcus became the child's guardian. The thing I'm most proud about, it is a John Romita Jr. comic come to life. Yeah, so... Five years later, he left prison. And he was ready. So anyway, so that's the comic. So here, we now realize the case of Damian. We get their backstory, which is obvious what it is. And the most important lines coming up is him saying, you heard, you know, in... Marcus says you owe her even a childhood. And we just want to make sure everyone understands that we don't think what they're doing is normal or should be condoned. But it's Big Daddy's themes coming in again. It's a pretty simple, dramatic scene, as I sort of already said what the point of it is. And I just think here, We suddenly see the vulnerability of Nick Cage, or Damon, and also the madness. I think it's the scene where you suddenly realize it was sort of fun crazy before, here it's sad crazy. I think it's important, again, it's sort of another trick you do to make you really just feel sorry for him and think, you know what? Get revenge for the horrible things that have happened to you. Get rid of these bad guys. You keep carrying on like you've been carrying on. It's only a matter of time before Gigante's looking for you. He's been on Frank D'Amico's payroll ever since you passed up the opportunity. You know I'm not going to stop. Not until D'Amico and his whole damn family... You know, no offense to Mark, I mean, I think most comic books are sort of two-dimensional, I'd say. You know, they're... You know, I think Mark has brilliant ideas and concepts, and I said to him, I said, I've got to put more heart into this and more... You've just got to like these characters. And I think Mark's characters can be quite horrible, to be blunt. I mean, Big Daddy, you know, when you find out he nicked the kid, you're like, I don't know about this, man. I don't really think I can justify that. So, I mean, we didn't have to do much work to Frank, for example. So, you know, Jane and I just wanted to make sure that you related. I don't fucking believe it.

Follow him around the corner. And this sequence was, um... I just thought, you know... We need to cut this scene, actually, and we were arguing about it. But I thought, you know, you need to see... It's all about, you know, the whole point of this movie is laying everything... ...so that last 40 minutes, once we get to it, are just kicking your ass nonstop. And I was like, guys, we need to see Mark Strong or Frank... ...being dangerous and psychotic, not just this henchman. And I always like the idea of screwing with the audience, because I think we've shown in this movie we're not afraid of the rules, so when he actually gets killed... Now, when we laugh by the stunt guys, we kept filming that again and again, and they're going, oh, it doesn't look realistic enough, so then they just told the stunt guy just to kick him in the head, and that's why it looks real, because he actually got kicked in the head, and I was shocked, but, you know, sometimes... Because they say, no pain, no gain. So there's a lot of pain and a lot of gain there. And here, it amazes me, because a lot of the audience are like, what the fuck? He just killed Kick-Ass. And that was the whole point. And I think that's why the movie does work, because I think we set up the world where you believe anything can happen. So that's what makes it, I think, feel fresh. He was so young. I wish he'd have to die that way. I just can't believe he's dead, that's all. Oh, I know. And here, this sequence, we nearly did cut, but without it, the audience, what happened is they were so confused that the next scene, they weren't laughing, enjoying themselves, because they were just trying to put two and two together, going, does that mean he's dead or he's alive? What's going on still? Because, you know, and then some smartass said to me, well, how do they know it's a kick-ass impersonation if it's not the real kick-ass? Because I was like, I don't know. So we put this scene in and that seemed to solve that question. I hope it's okay to say this, but it so sucks that you're gay. All I can say about this scene is I could take you out, Aaron. When you watch this, you know why, but I won't. I don't fucking believe this. That's Tarquin Pack. What kind of children's entertainment container is that? Huh? For some reason, this is my favorite lighting in the whole film. In this room. Don't know why. I just think it's... Frank, you're scaring me. You're losing it. Since when did you start getting your hands dirty again, huh? And in public. Since when I asked you fucks to deliver me kick-ass and you don't deliver. That's when. Hey, give me a break. It's been a week. We emailed them. We got half the crew out doing petty crimes as bait. We're busting our asses here. The hell are you doing? You're back on the powder now as well? Mommy, I want a kick-ass party. Dumb little fucks. No way you can get him. Even here, you see the gangsters and stuff, but then you put in the father thing. Even though he's a gangster, he doesn't want his son to see him snorting coke. And this is where McLovin comes out of his shell, shall we say. I think this is where you really get to start seeing his character and Chris gets to show off a bit. I can be that stranger. You just got to give me a chance. I know I can do it. I just need a few things. And you notice the Andy Warhol guns in the back. Like what? You know, everyone should always lobby Andy Warhol for postcards of them. Everyone should just wear a gun from Andy Warhol. It's a good piece of art. I just think they should. They should make it the most iconic painting he's got, I think. I think it's pop art at its greatest. Tony. Tony. Tony? Hey, fuck Tony. He's a scumbag. I swear, Dad, if you let me do this, it's gonna work. This is all improvised from the day we were mucking around. And Jane's like, that's not funny. No one's gonna find it funny. You guys keep doing all this masculine crap. And I was like, Jane, we're doing it. And then Jane saw it and went, okay, it is funny. So, how are things going with Katie? See, this part is far more Jane's writing. Just sleep over and spend the whole night watching the entire Ugly Betty box set. The pedicures. I'm telling you, the longer you wait, the worse it's going to get. I know. I was going to tell her. She seems so happy. I don't know when's the right time. Well, now's your chance. I feel the drama dictates where the camera goes, not the camera dictating where the drama goes, if that makes any sense. I've never, you know, I literally, I'll put the camera where I think it needs to be to tell the story.

Apart from the action, that's where I was really thinking about camera angles and making each action sequence have its own identity. So far, that's kept me out of trouble. I think there's too many movies where people think about the camera work before they do the sequence and then the narrative structure just goes out the window. Style over content is something I used to scream at directors when I was a producer. Content's more important. I mean, I think if people come out of a movie and say, hey, that cinematography and camera work was great, that means the film sucked. Yeah, he's got a way better costume than Kick-Ass 2. Look at these guys. This has got good chemistry. Everyone's got to be good in it, and everyone has to have the right timing, and these guys had it, and I just think it's more cinematic. I was watching this weekend, I saw It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World again. They've got like eight shots and ten shots of, you know, you're sitting there going, my God, where they just, and they hold it for 40 seconds. But it works, because they're great actors. You know, I wasn't trying to do a TV show here.

This song, I ummed and aahed about putting in the movie. Just argued about it. I put it up for a joke, and then we got used to it, and then I wanted to cut it out, then we missed it. Because it's so on the nose, but you know, the producers loved it and they persuaded me.

Now the weird thing about this scene is that for some reason I feel Aaron's American accent is pitch perfect in this scene more than anywhere else, and I don't know why. I really don't know why, it's probably the same, but I always remember thinking, my God, that's a good American accent. Oh shit! Fuck me, that kinda hurt. You okay? Yeah, I know. Now if you look at this, this is ridiculous, isn't it? You've got two guys dressed as superheroes having a conversation, and the fact that people seem to like it, it's a miracle. I mean, I look at this sequence and I start thinking, I understand why Hollywood said no, but they said no because of the violence. I'm thinking because it's, you know. You want to go fight some crime? You know what I mean, like, right now? Yeah, man, come on, I got something I want to show you. Uh, I mean, like, to be honest with you, I only ever fight crime between, like, nine and two weekdays, so I'm going to need to get back pretty soon.

Sweet. Is that yours? Meet the Mistmobile. Sat nav. Got my iPhone so I can check the websites for emergencies when I'm driving around. Got a little bit of mood lighting right there. Oh, the Mistmobile. That's the only thing. I did this movie for free. But I put in my contract that I got to keep the car. So then when we built it, we got the guys who did Pimp My Ride, built it for us, and they're like saying for an extra $20,000, they could rebuild the engine and make it, I think it's, how many, what's the horsepower, like 620 or something ridiculous? And I thought, why not? And actually, it's probably stupid to me, because it's terrifying to drive, because it hasn't got traction control. It's a typical Ford that's great in a straight line, but when you hit a corner, you're not sure whether you're going to go around it. But it's fun. My boy loves this car. Which I quite like because, you know, when people say, what's your favorite car? He says the Mistmobile and all the other kids are saying Ferraris. I think it's cooler to have a car like that than a Ferrari. Well, I got this email from this chick. She said this guy's been following her home from work. I got her address and stuff. You want to check it out? Sure, why not? And that was Henry Jackman. We said we needed a Danny Elfman style, sort of Batman-ish, you know. We'd love Danny to do it, but, you know, you can't ask too much out of someone for free. And I think Henry wrote... beautiful piece of music that he owns. Because he thought it was such a good theme, he decided we couldn't have it, but he'd lend it to us. But as Henry's a decent man, we agreed. So here, as you see, the tone starts. We now put more edgier music in. Got to remind people there's danger in this film as well as humor.

Yeah, now it's, well, because all the characters have come together and the plot's going in and, you know, I feel like we've gotten to the top of the Colossus. Now, this was me fucking around, by the way. It was these, so... They never thought this would be in the movie. I said, OK, guys, start dancing. And actually, we just put play on someone's iPod and Crazy came up, so they were dancing to it. And Aaron's a trained dancer, so if you actually look at what he's doing, it's pretty cool, but... And my editor thought we were nuts again. I said, go on, put it in. And he said, it's never gonna work. But I think it sort of sums up the movie. One minute you're scared, then you're laughing, then you're scared, then you're sad, then you're happy. And I don't know. We've got a way with Blue Murder on this movie, and I don't know how, but probably because we had no one telling us what to do. Because it's weird watching it here with just an earpiece in and stuff. When it gets a bit better, when you look at just the picture... I look like I'm insane. This is what I'm thinking, half the stuff we ended up doing. Shit! I had a big argument with the second unit director over this, because he managed to light this in a way that... Because obviously there's no real fire, that's CG fire. But look how dark their bloody faces are. I was like, dude, fire has light. So it pissed me off a little bit, but everything else Tim did was perfect. This one I was like, but I even said when I looked at the rushes, when they're too dark, make them brighter, and I got told I was wrong. And we got away with it. We had to lift it as much as we can, but I think it would look better if there was some more interactive light on their faces. But hey, I shouldn't be criticizing. I should be praising. And this bit of score was a... ...miraculous work. We just couldn't crack this. In the end, we took two different pieces of score... ...rejected and kept cutting between them. And it sort of worked in a weird way. I think it, you know, so... And luckily, they're both written in the same key... ...so we could get away with it. Good old Mark. Mark is just a brilliant actor. He knows how to... It sounds crazy, but he knows how to... internalize it so that you can see it instead of externalizing it and not feeling real. We gotta get the hell out of here! Here's my homage to a classic Superman superhero shot. Which, again, is really quite ridiculous if you look at that. I mean, it's sort of over the top, but somehow we... I keep thinking, you know, if you guys... Well, I doubt you'll be watching this right now if you didn't like the movie, so I can say we got away with it again. Shit. Did you see those bodies? Unless you're a Daily Mail journalist who's still trying to find some other reason to complain. Why did you save the teddy? What? I don't know, man. Come on.

This sequence went in and out of the movie. We cut this and we put it back, halved it, but... Come. What the hell are you doing, Frank? You know I can't be here. And you see those Warhol guns, how they changed colour? That was a screw-up. This is the first day of filming on the set, but they came out wrong. I think they look sort of grey there and then they're white in the next scenes, but... There's probably continuity errors all over the place. That's the only one I've noticed. And here comes my favorite gag in the film, and it never gets a laugh. Sod's Law. No one laughs at that. I think that's fucking funny. Although I've got new theories that the audience are doing what the actors are doing. They're looking at it as well, going, well, yeah, why is he holding a teddy? So that's maybe why it doesn't get the laugh, because they're participating in the joke without realizing it. Yeah, so I wanted to, you know, each action sequence, I wanted to have, you know, have an identity. So this one, we started doing one shot. We put some jump cuts into it, but... you'll see it's all, you know, it's a steadicam. And now we're hearing Big Daddy's theme, sort of more rock and roll. Let's see, three, four, same notes. It's Murphy, just, he's a genius. That's Nick at this point, that's Nick. Yeah, it's Nick, I mean, Nick's, he learned this in about a day as well, but it was fun. I think he enjoyed himself, Nick, in this movie. I know he liked putting on the costume, that's for sure. Still wish we got to see the Nick Cage and Tim Burton's Superman. See, what we're doing now is probably what they would have done. Maybe I was lucky that they didn't do it, because they left a hole in the market, which they might have claimed.

This was a re-shoot, this part on Krisk. We cut 15 minutes out of the movie, so I needed to have a link. So we had to somehow explain how they know about Kick-Ass being connected to Big Daddy. But on the other cut, we did a really fun groupie sex scene where Red Mist and Kick-Ass pick up two fans. Red Mist has a threesome in the back of the car, the Mistmobile, which is very amusing. So now, you know, we're tightening the screws, getting a little bit more serious. That's the back corridor at Elstree Studios. We run out of money, so we just started literally shooting wherever we could, so we couldn't afford to build a set. They just put him on a staircase and shot it in like 15 seconds. I mean, we really struggled to get this film made for the money we made it for. No more homework, baby doll. You see, homework, because she's reading a comic. A lot of people didn't pick up on that. Now, before that used to go into a close-up of Mark Strong, but we cut the scene, so that transition isn't as cool as it used to be. Right now, I envy the crap out of them. And then, you know... I think it's very important, pacing-wise, just to have a little bit of a calm before the storm, and a huge storm is now coming over the hill. It's pretty obvious what's going on here, why the framing is. And we cut an earlier scene where you see he used to go to the graveyard to read comics at his mother's grave, but Mark Millar was in the shot as well. Trying to do a Stan Lee. I just thought it was just important now to show the other side of Dave. That shot's actually a shot from him walking to his halls. I mean, this really is independent filmmaking. We just flip it and tighten it up a bit, and it looked like he's walking somewhere else.

This sequence was a nightmare to shoot as well. I'm kick-ass. You mail me? Finally, the scene works. Fucking kick-ass! Get out of my house! I'm not gonna hurt you, all right? Oh, no, no, no, it's me, it's me, all right? I was only trying to surprise you. I'm sorry. What the fuck are you doing? Why are you dressed as kick-ass? Because I am kick-ass. What are you talking about? And I'm also kick-ass. Not gay. Fuck! And I'm an idiot and a shit friend. I lied to you. I know. Oh, my God! I know. If it makes you feel any better, I don't think you can hate me any more right now than I hate myself. Please, I'm... Look, I'm really, really sorry. I've never meant to... Now, the music here, it was because, you know, look, this is two teenagers, and the composer wrote a really sort of sweet, beautiful, lush... Romantic theme, but I thought you know what guys we can't take this shit seriously and I just suddenly thought play me the theme but doing an 80s sort of tangerine dream style and So he did it and it just made me laugh and I just thought it reminded me of all the 80s sort of pretty in pink and risky business and sort of music Dave And I just thought it needs to be more I think it lets the audience, gives them permission to know this isn't totally serious, and that's why they get such a big laugh at the end when he grabs the tits. That was the first round of applause we got in the premiere, him grabbing the tits. I was like, what? 62 minutes in, the scene that I thought was the worst scene in the movie with the city punchline, we got a British round of applause. I don't know, we were all Benny Hill wannabes or something in the film industry in England, because weird.

See, look, no cuts, just holding this. I think we hold this shot for like 30 seconds. I have ADD in life, so I thought I'd try not to put it into film. Nice big baseline coming up.

We gotta get over it, on top of it, and then into it, right in the middle of it. Daddy, I think I found one. It's perfect, and they can deliver it in three days. Uh, it's 300,000 bucks. Can you think of anything else you'd rather spend it on? Oh, my gosh. That is cool. Yeah. Add the shopping cart. Okay.

See that comic in the middle? It's called Clint. That's, uh... Mark Millar's got an idea of doing a comic. You're not allowed to say Clint, because it sounds... When it gets printed badly, it becomes cunt. But that sums Mark Millar's sense of humor up. This sequence is a bit weird, because I suddenly realize... ...he doesn't have to pretend to be the gay guy anymore. He's still doing it here. So it implies that they haven't told anyone that they're together yet. but why wouldn't they, I don't know. But I think we got away with it. I just suddenly watched the scene thinking, I made a mistake here, but that's life. Suddenly I understood why superheroes only existed in comic books. Okay, I could tell you a really funny sequence here, right? This is R-rated, so I'm gonna go really on it now. So Aaron said, look, I think the way we should do this, I should really fuck her over the bins. And from behind, and I was like, all right, okay, fine. And then massive argument broke out on set because Lindsay was saying, I'm not going to do that. And we're like, okay, no problem. I thought, why? And she got really heated and she goes, you know, couples just don't do that when they first met. I was like, okay, look, I really don't mind. Just do what's comfortable. And then the next day she suddenly said, oh, I misunderstood what you guys were saying. I thought you wanted me to have anal sex with him. Isn't that crazy? My mom would have been so happy to see you out of your shell like this. Have a good night. Hey, baby. Hey, what's going on? I gotta do a kick-ass thing. What? I thought you were done with that. This is the last time, I totally swear. I worry about you. Well, I wish you wouldn't worry.

I care about you a lot. I care about you a lot too. That's a real sunset, no digital enhancement. No visual effects. I remember just screaming, get the camera up there, we're gonna miss it.

That is on location. I think there's one sort of thing where the CG looks fake and it's the real thing. It's like typical. How about both of us being dead? Is that serious enough for you? Dead? I think these two knock it out. I think there's really good acting between them. Look at Chris really... I'm so glad people are responding to Chris in this movie. He deserves it because he has been sort of labelled with the McLovin syndrome. for a long time. So, Obviously here, we've never shown what's in the crate. And this is just the part of the film where we're saying it's time to get serious. A little bit of saccharine sweetness with the two of them. Just, as I said, trying to keep that balance of humor versus pathos. And now, so if you remember, you said if you've got a problem, you can contact us by saying you're on vacation. That's why it says on vacation, I think people forget that. It says that in the scene where we first hear the Adam West impression. And now it's like, okay, the wheels are about to fall off. So there was a scene, I remember when I first watched Miami Vice and there was a scene of Sonny and Crockett, that's what they're called, driving to a bad situation to the Phil Collins in the air tonight. So this is sort of, my version of that, sort of a bit moodier and just getting the audience, because you know, the humor is becoming less and less important now. Now it's about making sure you feel like the turn is real and we're not, you know, it's keeping that balance going. So hence the music is moodier and just these long lingering shots. I mean, sometimes it's, The picture does the talking better than me, that's for sure. I actually thought it'd be interesting here just to see a superhero be created, you know, painting the eyes black, putting on the mask. What does it really look like? It's like a gladiator going to war. His costume was all made out of French riot gear stuff. Everything, by the way, I made sure is possible to get on the internet, the costumes. We pushed the boundaries as far as we could, in the sense of reality, without it getting too ridiculous, but at the same time, I wasn't making a documentary, so I had to get... This movie is about balancing everything. A lot of people suddenly said, how come the doors are gullwing? And they're designed so you can open it both ways, and they were lazy in all the other takes. And now... tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. going to be the time bomb, which is about to explode. Well, here you are, and Red Mist, too. And the weird thing is, even though he's doing Adam West, it's funny, but it's serious at the same time. I mean, that's what's so, that's why I think Nick's performance is 10 out of 10. And this was just a room back office, which we ran out of money and we couldn't afford to build another set. So we just nicked all the guns from the set we had built and changed the color of the background and put them all up again. So low-budget filmmaking at its best. If you look at the radio, I mean, that really is a crappy little storeroom in Elstree. And the bazooka thing, it was sort of in the script, and it was really weird. The bazooka plot line sort of... I don't know, it's very... Again, another organic process that we sort of mucked around with on the set. And then it worked. So, um... That's... In Toronto, about six weeks ago, we suddenly realized you could still see the CNN tower. CNN tower, is that what it is? Whatever that big tower is. So we had to paint that out. We panicked. Again, like the bazooka thing, that was sort of made up on the day again. Okay. We had a deal, Dad. We had a fucking deal that I would get you the guy who did it. And all I'm asking is you let Kick-Ass go. He didn't do anything wrong. And here we've got to play the father-son relationship. Okay? I got to send a public service message to the people out there that being a superhero is bad for your health. And the big motherfucker, nobody knows who he is. Yeah, but that's not fair. Yeah, life's not fair, kid. Get over it. What are you going to do to them? You really want to be a part of my business? Yeah. Then sit down, shut up, and watch.

And here is where it gets pretty horrible, so I decided... ...not to muck around with this. I just thought, you know what, let's... ...really push it for realism and... ...so that we really feel that one of them could, or both of them could die. And, um... ...I like the idea of using the internet as this way that, you know, to... ...combine everyone, you know, again, all the strands come together, them watching... This webcast, not realizing how connected they all are. Some people have accused me of going too far with it, but I think it works. I have to, it's my job. But I think that's what's important about this. Even though you've got lots of characters, you have to make sure that they all feel that we're not doing like a shortcuts where they're sort of connected together, but they're not really. Keep pushing them up the mountain, so when we get to the top, it's a much easier descent. Um, which happens pretty soon. J'adore. Now, that's... Everyone thinks that's Big Joe, and it's not. That's Cory. He did a great job here, but we then had to make it look like it was Big Joe. But no one's really noticed. Come on in, guys. Say hello. Yeah. Yeah, there they are. Hello, hello. Now, Big Daddy and Kick-Ass... are gonna help us show you why being a hero is a bad idea. You know what a silent K is? That's when K is at the beginning of the word, but you don't pronounce it like in the word knuckle duster. But I think what's important about this movie is you have to decide in each scene what you want the audience to feel, and then you can change things around a bit after, you know, in the scene, but for me, you know, you had to feel danger and just, What's the word? You're supposed to be upset that this is happening to your lead character and that you really think he's not going to get out of it. So when he does get rescued, it's far more emotionally satisfying. And a lot of people asked me to tone this down. I think I just said that, but I'll say it again. I didn't feel it was right. But then again, it starts getting really intense. And then we came up with this idea of pausing it to make it feel like something's gone wrong. because now it's time to let the people off the hook and then let the audience realize, oh, actually, we do want to see what's going on. So they become, you know, they're sort of reacting the same way, I hope, as these characters saying, come on, show us what's going to happen. Is he going to die or is he going to escape? So now we're back into it. And now we change the music before the music was for tension. Now, you see the music goes down for a second and then we're going to start doing like a mini adagio to make you feel emotion for it instead. And then we got in arguments about that because people thought it became too sad. I was like, it's your lead character getting killed. What were we meant to play it for? Sadness or humor? So sadness won. And it's interesting. There are a few gags. When we say the lost gag, that makes people laugh. And when Marty does that and Todd. But I think it works because, you know, humor is a human's defense form against sadness and feeling upset and making life better. And that's what I think works about the movie is making sure that we always have a little wink at moments just to say, don't worry, it's getting serious, but you can still enjoy yourself. And that's why Aaron always played it straight. That's the thing I had to keep telling the actors, keep it straight. Play it for real. All you cavemen out there is fire. Nat gets a huge laugh. Fire. Fire is good. Fire is our friend. Yeah. Gentlemen. And now we come to the first piece of action that we storyboarded right at the beginning. And basically what happened is, when I was working with the armorer designing the sets, I wanted to find out exactly what equipment, you know, the SAS or whatever are using. First of all, he gave me these night vision goggles, the new version. They look like a pair of ski masks. Imagine it's just ski goggles, but black. And they put me in a... I just couldn't believe what you could see through it. And in fact, you can see it so realistically now... ...that we've put a tinge on it just so people knew what was going on. So I've had to remix this scene about ten times. I was never happy with the gun bullets, the gun noises. But what I wanted was sort of calmness here. And then when we go outside of her point of view, it's like a drummer. Boom, boom, boom. And, you know, I felt like, you know, I grew up playing Doom and stuff, and I really felt no one's ever quite captured what it's like to play a video game. And I loved the idea of it's chaos, chaos, chaos with her, it's just calm. You've got this, I mean, I assume the audience know it's Hitgard, because who else could it be? But, so we play that, this is all cool, isn't this great? And then suddenly, oh no, fire. And then we were debating, I always thought he should burn alive, and a lot of people said no, but Nick and I decided we're gonna be brave, on the match. And, uh... And now if you see the music and the whole tone, it's slowing down to become emotional. And I found out about this damn strobe thing that the, um... that the SAS use, and they put them on the gun and it disorientates people. So I looked at it and went, okay, that is cool. I wanted to put slow motion into it, but I think slow motion's such a hackneyed way of doing action now. Um, but now I had a reason to go slow-mo. Because I'm sure we've all been in a discotheque in our youth and liked the strobe coming on and doing stupid things to it. So that was really the inspiration to this. And I've got to say, even watching it now, I'm amazed I did this scene. I think it's cool as hell. We go to Robin's revenge! And the kryptonite code in Robin's Revenge, that we made up on the day. We had before, he said, bait and switch. And I said, hold on. If you say bait and switch and change to the strobe... ...you're telling the guys what's happening. So here, they're still shooting at the wrong thing. That's Robin's revenge plan. This was shot on a phantom camera. I just think this looks extraordinary. The thing I wasn't happy with, see the fire? I was going, it always looked fake, and then we actually shot real fire and put it on, and it's just, if you see fire at a thousand frames, that's exactly what it looks like. So sometimes fake is real, which is annoying. This is a bit of a cheat, because remember, it's now darkness in there, so you wouldn't have seen her in the lens, but we're making a movie. You've got to keep it entertaining. Big cheer at this point. Big cheer. In the cinemas. Which is, you know, very satisfying. That should be really difficult for you. Are you okay? Keep holding the three shot on these guys. They're great. Good job.

And this is Big Daddy's theme in all its glory. So remember, it's just four notes. And Henry Jackman took Murphy's four notes, and he just wrote this requiem. And I think it's extraordinary. And obviously, these are one of the scenes, again, where in the rushes, we're like thinking we could really screw up. And I always wanted to make it sort of like the Darth Vader unmasking scene. But at the same time, keep emotion in it, keep it real. You know, we had to have ridiculous dialogue, but at the same time, the actors pulled it off. Both of them are great, but look at Chloe, though. Chloe's just... You know, she's been trained not to show emotions, and she gets it right by trying not to show emotion, but the emotion's coming through, and she's trying to be the tough girl. But the music is... If you just listen to the music in this moment, it's extraordinary what Henry Jackman did. And Nick was... To pull off a death without closing your eyes, he somehow managed to freeze his eyes, thinking it was a hell of an achievement. So we had a great scene here, which I cut, because it was a gag, and as I was saying, it's about the balance of gags to storytelling and emotion. And we had her walking out and getting in the car and driving off all in one shot. And it was so funny to watch, but the problem was it was going from sad, and then it was too big a laugh, and then to get back into the scene was too much of a gear change. And that's what, as I said, what's tough about this movie is judging when to do the gear change and when not to. So I had to kill a really fun scene to shoot because it was a bugger to get her to drive the car because it was a manual, but she did it well. I think the two of them are great. Eleven years old when she did this, isn't that extraordinary? And poor Aaron, you know, it's a tough role he had because Everybody else around him's got all the fun, big stuff to do, and he had to just slowly, slowly play a teenager who becomes an adult and a hero at the end through self-discovery. But he didn't really have much razzmatazz to do it with, so I thought it was extraordinary how he pulled it off. So this scene This was a bugger to get right, because to score this was really difficult, because you've got two things happening at once. You've got her, the sadness, her wanting to get revenge, him thinking, what the hell's going on? How do I cope with this? And we rescored this on the last day of the dub. And by then, we'd run out of money totally. And so we sat with some cheap synthesizers, and we did our sort of bad 80s style. I think Commando, Rambo tooling up. I mean, if you listen to these, how bad these sounds are, but it works. We really pushed it like that. And then Henry sung a top line. We're going to put it on YouTube because it's so embarrassing that we recorded it. This is Henry and Murphy, I think, having fun. I don't think they're normally allowed to just ...make something up in an hour and then record it... ...and put it on the film two hours later. But, yeah, we got away with it. Whoa, I meant, like, pajamas and clothes and stuff. You can't take that stuff to my house. You know what my dad really would have wanted? What I think is extraordinary at this point in the movie... ...I think you forget that they're wearing costumes... ...that they're just characters. For me, the scene just feels like a real scene. It doesn't feel... You know, like two people in fancy dress trying to play grown-ups. Well, at least I think so. And here it's now time for, um... the finale to get ready. And, uh... For some reason, it was a bugger to edit this scene. I can't remember why. I think we were trying to speed it up, so we're getting rid of some exposition. But because they're all over the room geographically, moving and stuff, it was tougher than it looks. Exactly. Exactly. Do you want to deal with Owen, my dad? Then shut the hell up and pick your weapon. Is that what I think it is? So then here again, we're building up the crate. Hopefully everyone's, you know, what's in it? What's in it? What's in it? That was the biggest risk of the movie when we reveal what's in it. You know, we could have got laughed off the screen and we were cheered. And so far we had cheers. Long may that continue. So here, if you listen to the music, we've gone more Morricone-ish. You know, we're... And the reason for being that is the next scene, we actually use a piece of Morricone. And I didn't want it just to jump up, so we're just slowly edging towards it. And now all the fun begins. Everyone thinks, uh, no. The schoolgirl outfit. A lot of freaks on the Internet think we were doing this for some sexualization thing. And I can tell you now we weren't. This was all about her. She's meant to be playing a... She's playing an innocent schoolgirl, so she gets in so people feel sorry for her. And it's extraordinary what some people see in scenes. I got into a big argument with a journalist about it. He pissed me off, actually. Trying to put words in my mouth. Going on about the phallic symbol in his mouth the next show, and I was like, dude.

I gotta say, out of all the scenes, this is pretty insane. You know, I've seen it a million times, I've shot it, but it's, um... But it works, and I just said to Chloe, this is, you know... You're shaking people's hands right now. You're not killing... That's why I told her to do it so casually, like she was born to do this. And now we... This is sort of a spaghetti western version of his theme coming in. I just want, you know, just, like, to try and keep a musical journey... ...have some sense of, um... It's like, now what is in the box? A pair of Gatling guns. You know, becoming the hero. One hopes. See how crappy those bullets look? They forgot to spring someone on set and that's all we could find. I wanted much weightier bullets, but anyway.

That's the Mark Quinn blood head. That's a Damien Hirst spot painting. That's a kid killing a man using a knife in pretty graphic detail. And that is beyond words. So now... We had to keep topping every moment. Imagine, it gets quite tough. So it's just like, okay, guys. And this piece of music, this was the last cue we wrote and could not get it right. And Murphy, I think I drove him nuts saying, do it again for about five months. But I was really trying to create this sort of, what I call it, it's like a, She's a lead singer in a rock band and this is building up for her to come up on stage and do a solo. So I was like, here we go, build, build, build, build. Drum roll. And now she starts singing. But her instrument isn't one I recommend. She causes havoc. Now this is, you know, tonally I had to really, I mean, of course, I've said this is all based in reality, and now she's doing things with clips, which isn't... Well, it's possibly impossible. So what I'm saying is, in theory, this all could happen, but it might take a thousand times to do it for real, to get it done once. But it's the end of the movie. We've gone on a ride. We might as well give you a finale worth paying for.

And now my job was to start putting her into, I wanted to get, you know, it's really important that Luke, well, I call him the Luke Skywalker character, but Dave has his Death Star moment, shall we call it. So, well, the moment where he can become a hero and where suddenly our indestructible machine is now out of weapons and looking vulnerable.

Because, you know, it's... If Dave doesn't do something heroic by the end of this movie, then you'd come out thinking you've been robbed. Get out there. So, but we... And then I just suddenly... This stuff was all made up in the day. I just felt like there were so many comedic points, like, you know, get out there about me now, and the three big gangsters arguing about who's gonna try and get the unarmed girl, that they're still scared, and it's... I think this is sort of the lock, stock, snatch training I went through. We sort of get into that territory where I feel quite comfortable. You do now. Here it's meant to be how she got it, and purposely never showed that she's got the knives. This is a pure comedic moment. It's silly, but it sort of works.

And now it's like, fuck this shit. And as I said, that was never part of the plan, the bazooka thing. And then we just suddenly wrote all this new action, all based around the bazooka. It's sort of, that's what's weird about filmmaking. You think everything's under control and then it isn't. And in times where everything's a mess and it turns out to be brilliant. So I think there are no rules to how you make a good film. Now this line. Jane trying to get me cut. She thinks it's not funny at all. I disagree. Fun being the director because in the end you do sort of get your way. And then here we go. Build up the danger. She listens to the music. Nice death bells going on. Poor. It's the first time she's vulnerable.

You wanna say this? And then... Say hello to my little friend! Say hello to my little friend. That was on the day. And I thought that, you know, I just had to say it once as a joke. And the joke got into the film, and now here's the point where we either lose the audience or we get a big cheer. Because it's fucking ridiculous. Elvis Presley and our lead hero on a jet pack. I mean, fucking hell. We're taking the piss on this film, but... It worked somehow. And you can buy this jet pack. I think it was about $200,000 from a guy in Mexico. So, it's all possible. And Kenny, he's the guy in the middle running. And he said, I don't need a crash mat. I go, no, you do. It's dangerous. So, after a long argument, we put the... I think they look like lemurs as well, the way they're jumping. It's really weird. So, he jumped and he managed to miss. ...the mat that we wouldn't put down and knock himself out. So he's probably... I don't know. As I said, it probably looks good. They were all in pain afterwards. I mean, he had one take, so you can imagine how relaxed we were... ...blowing up the one set. We did it all for real. I wasn't into CG, the glass game. Everything was real. And the weird-sounding bazooka, we made that up. I think sometimes if you've got something like a weak spot in a movie... ...or could be perceived as a weak spot, you should... ...so I thought if the lead guy says, that's a weird-sounding bazooka... ...then no one can fault. They might be thinking it themselves. So here we choreographed it that I needed to get those two out of the room. To have four people fighting in a room is just a nightmare... ...because I wanted it all to make sense. And here is the whole point about the death, where we see him killing... ...the fake kick asses, so you can see him do a proper roundhouse kick... ...and now start worrying, because we've seen what he's capable of. These are just meant to be two morons having a fight. And I just wanted to film this as brutally as I could. I mean, Mark Strong and I, any time we've had arguments... ...just didn't feel comfortable doing this. And I was like, you can't think of her as a little girl. You've got to think of her as this... ...Terminator-style little thing that has just wiped out your empire. But he is a human being underneath all of this. But anyway, so... And these guys, we just want to see that they're just hitting each other. And this is the moment where it's the big turn. I just thought it'd be funny that the two of them knock each other out, and it gives the tension of, is someone gonna come up to rescue her? The gun gets more serious. He had to kick that, kick the chair away for the last shot, because I suddenly realized I was blocking the scene, but it would be blocking the framing even. I asked him to stamp on her head, but he wouldn't. I said, come on, he did it on the other guy, but I found his boundaries, not mine, but I found his. And now the horrible thing about filmmaking is you're trying to bring tension, but, you know, it's sort of like if you do a James Bond movie, you know he's never gonna die. So it was harder to create proper tension here, but it worked in the end. It's all about timing and just setting it up for the payoff, which we're gonna get in about 10 seconds. He's no longer there, you see, because we painted him out. I thought it would look good to cut back and give the audience a clue to give it a reason that he's not there. Why don't you pick on someone your own size? Pay off time for the bazooka. And that's the Death Star, I believe, blowing up. So, um... And now we're at the part of the movie which is sort of, you know, you're tempted just to roll credits there, because you've done your job, and now it's tying up the loose ends. And the real bugger about this was, I was like, do I want to see them fly or not? Because it's a bit cheesy. And then the journey's been such a rollercoaster ride that I thought the audience just deserved to have a smile and enjoy themselves and feel good, because I think right now with the state of the world, we need it. And so we took his theme and we did what, this is our version of a modern day superhero theme. Strong melody, but guitars and orchestra together. So I think if you saw this scene without watching the rest of the movie, you'd think what a pile of crap, but it does pay off.

a counter melody coming in right now. I still think this could be a hit song if we put lyrics on this, but that's another story. And now it's time to say goodbye. This is actually one of my favorite scenes. Believe it or not, we shot this That's just them standing in a green screen room. I think the guys, the visual effects did a great job because I really feel that does look like they're in New York. I think this is fabulous acting. I mean, two kids standing in a green room wearing superhero costumes and they put emotion into it. And he looks like a movie star suddenly. I think that's, you know... In a weird way, this is one of my favorite scenes. I just realized that watching it. Yeah, I think you go on such a journey with them and her taking off her mask and shaking their hands. It just works. And then obviously here where they turn to look over the sunset or sunrise. Obvious moment to roll credits, but of course I got told no. We just need that last little sting in the tail. Because some cynical people out there thought we should set up a chance of having a sequel. Mindy moved in with Marcus, and he enrolled her at my school. And it's nice to see Mindy as a schoolgirl. I think that's a hell of a journey for her, that she's going to have a normal life, we hope. Let me see the bullies coming in. I don't like bullies. Anyone out there who's been bullied will probably enjoy this part. And here is French Connections saying, put some real kick-ass stuff in there. So I agreed. And then there's a certain Jack Nicholson stroke Joker who said a line which we thought would be a fun way of ending the movie. As a great man once said, where do they get a load of me? And his costume's now orange, because the orange of Frank. That's it, so goodbye. Thank you for buying the DVD or the Blu-ray, and I hope it stands the test of time.

A girl with a wicked mind But everything looks better When the sun goes down I had everything Opportunities for eternity And I could belong to the night In your eyes, your eyes I can see in your eyes, your eyes You make me wanna die I'll never be good enough

I had everything. Opportunities for eternity.