Mark Millar On Kick-Ass' Box Office Performance
This past weekend,Kick-Assbarely won the box office crownin a photo finish withHow to Train Your Dragon. Since then, people have been throwing a lot of numbers around about how profitable the film will actually end up being. In the past, Millarhas been quotedas saying that Vaughn raised around $70 million to makeKick-Ass. Inmy recent interviewwith him, the number he used was $40 million. On the flip side, when Lionsgate acquired Kick-Ass last summer, Variety cited speculation that the deal was wortharound $45 million. A recentLATimesarticle stated that Lionsgate “paid $15 million for distribution rights to the independently financed film,” and “spent a little less than $30 million on advertising and prints.” Lionsgate will end up keeping half the gross, while the rest stays with movie exhibitors.
So how well exactly isKick-Assdoing? Millar weighed in on the film’s box office performance in a statement to MTV. Hit the jump for his perspective.
According toMTV, Millar thinks the film is doing just fine. The film costs “$28 million after the U.K. tax breaks, and our U.K. and U.S. gross alone is already at $38 million as of last night.” Millar noted, “We were top Friday, Saturday and Sunday — which is amazing, considering we’re in the middle of a holiday season and up against 3-D competition with an R-rated superhero movie.”
He continued:
We’re looking at a very nice profit here and word of mouth is spectacular — the reviews being among the best I’ve ever seen — and so we’re all very proud to find ourselves in this position. Positive advance reviews had some people hoping for a $25 million domestic opening. I wanted ‘Avatar’ numbers myself, but as Matthew sensibly pointed out, we were made on a Tarantino budget and should be more than happy with Tarantino numbers.
There’s a lot of insight in the Tarantino comparison. The budgets ofKick-Assand Tarantino films are similar, and they both cater to pretty specific geek niches. WhileInglorious Basterdshad the benefit of Brad Pitt’s face to plaster all over its marketing materials,Kill Bill Vol. 1only grossed$22 million on its opening weekend, a number very comparable toKick-Ass.
I’m still not sure how this shakes out for Lionsgate, but it seems like Matthew Vaughn and Millar will do just fine. The film will be profitable, just not a monster hit as some in the online community had hoped. Unfortunately, with the box office juggernaut ofIron Man 2rapidly approaching, it’s not looking good for aKick-Asssequel.
