Monday Morning Quarterback Part I

By BOP Staff

April 19, 2010

This was the longest televised scoring drought since The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

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Maybe we should rename ourselves the Self-Fulfilling Prophets…or, hm. Maybe not.



Kim Hollis: With regards to the performance of Kick-Ass, was it a self-fulfilling prophecy that it was identified as a low-budget B-movie going in?

Josh Spiegel: I must have missed that identification. I assumed (rightly) that Kick-Ass was a parody/satire of Spider-Man and its ilk and, low budget aside (by the way, I never thought the movie looked that cheap), a violent riff on superheroes. If this movie was identified as a B movie, that's just wrong. What made this movie not perform better was its rating, and the lack of mass marketing. I saw no ads for this movie anywhere on TV or in print; I knew it was coming out thanks to the Interwebs, but the appeal wasn't as widespread.

Matthew Huntley: I missed that identification, too, and I agree with Josh that it didn't look or feel like a B-movie. For such a low budget film, the cinematography, stunts and special effects were professionally executed and I was impressed with its overall appearance, especially the deeply saturated colors. I would label the film as gritty compared to other superhero movies (namely Spider-Man), but I don't think it looks cheap or B'sh. In regards to its performance, I would say Josh hit the nail on the head: the R-rating and the under-exposure on TV prevented it from really breaking through.

Michael Lynderey: I can't really say who identified it as what, but when I first heard of the making of this film, I wasn't sure if it was even intended to be a wide theatrical release (i.e. Woody Harrelson's potentially similar title, Defendor). But in the last few months, it's certainly done an A-class job of positioning itself not only as a mainstream film, but one worthy of considerable attention. So I wouldn't say perceptions about B-movies had any effect on the box office here.




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Tom Macy: I thought the marketing a was pretty solid. I recall TV spots, posters, etc. Maybe they're pushing it harder in NYC. I never got the B-movie label. Though there was clearly an element of camp. I suppose it's foolish to expect an R-rated movie with no built-in audience of big names to open bigger, but I thought it was going to be a District 9 a situation where a cool looking movie resonates with the public. I'm chalking it up to the sound of fury of Internet chatter that signifies you know what.

Reagen Sulewski: With regards to super-hero movies, audiences have come to expect a lot of FX-driven action now, and just sparing amounts of comedy. I think the lack of the former and the excess of the latter is what kept the audience of this one strictly to the hard-core. This could potentially move the needle for future independent projects like this though.

Max Braden: I would not have described it that way from the trailers, but I also wouldn't have described it as mainstream either. Kick-Ass by Kevin Smith would have been a low budget B movie.

David Mumpower: Max's argument is an issue of perception versus reality in that the director Kick-Ass, Matthew Vaughn, made his reputation working on low budget Guy Ritchie films and his own directorial debut, Layer Cake, earned less than $3 million domestically. His only "big" studio film to date is the aforementioned Stardust, which bombed. So, he's looking way up at Kevin Smith's career.

In terms of the specific question, I'm surprised so many people saw this as something other than a B-movie. It's a cast comprised of unknown teens and their costumes are intentionally low budget to play up the faux-superhero theme. This was not a glossy take on super-heroism and a specific choice was made to focus on the amateur hour themes. I do view that as self-fulfilling prophecy, which is why I was never that high on the movie. It's a low budget breadwinner, a sort of movie arbitrage. My concern here is whether Scott Pilgrim vs. The World will be viewed in a similar fashion upon its release. Along those lines, the comic book idea that Kick-Ass mimics, Runaways, needs to aim higher in order to avoid the same fate, desired mediocrity. On a side note, I'm not assuming legs for this film as I see it going one of two ways. It's either going to tap into the zeitgeist or it's going to be this generation of kids' indoctrination into a Battle Royale-flavored world, one they find rather uncomfortable. There isn't a lot of in-between here in my estimation.


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