Jim Carrey made a very surprising announcement via Twitter on Sunday. He said that he will not be supporting his next big project, Kick-Ass 2, because of the film’s violent content.
His original tweet on the subject was short and to the point.
“I did Kickass a month b4 Sandy Hook and now in all good conscience I cannot support that level of violence.”
Twelve minutes later, he added this second statement.
“My apologies to others involve with the film. I am not ashamed of it but recent events have caused a change in my heart.”
In the film, Carrey plays a vigilanted named Colonel Stars & Stripes, a former hitman who is also a Born-Again Christian who refuses to fire a gun during his crime-fighting escapades.
Mark Millar, the author of the eponymous graphic novels that Kick-Ass is based on has already posted a lengthy response on the forums of his website, MillarWorld. Millar shows class by complimenting Carrey’s performance, but he also questions this strange change of heart, because Carrey loved the first film.
“Jim is a passionate advocate of gun-control and I respect both his politics and his opinion, but I’m baffled by this sudden announcement as nothing seen in this picture wasn’t in the screenplay eighteen months ago. Yes, the body-count is very high, but a movie called Kick-Ass 2 really has to do what it says on the tin. A sequel to the picture that gave us HIT-GIRL was always going to have some blood on the floor and this should have been no shock to a guy who enjoyed the first movie so much….This is fiction and like Tarantino and Peckinpah, Scorcese and Eastwood, John Boorman, Oliver Stone and Chan-Wook Park, Kick-Ass avoids the usual bloodless body-count of most big summer pictures and focuses instead of the CONSEQUENCES of violence, whether it’s the ramifications for friends and family or, as we saw in the first movie, Kick-Ass spending six months in hospital after his first street altercation.”
The abrupt announcement from Jim Carrey comes a bit more than month away from Kick-Ass 2‘s release date on August 16th. It remains to be seen how this will affect his relationships with the rest of the crew and producers of the film.
What do you think of what Carrey has done here? Do you think that he’s burned a bridge that he needs? Do you appreciate that he’s trying to be responsible about the film’s violent content? Why don’t you just tell us what you think in the comments below?
