Nicolas fights crime in Kick-Ass

MANILA, Philippines - This summer, a new breed of superheroes will be revealed.

Teen geek and comic book fan Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) makes a totally bizarre but brave decision. He is going under disguise as a superhero, minus the superpowers. And he’s going to be known as Kick-Ass. Donned in a green and yellow wetsuit bought on-line, he prowls the city to fight crime. However, he’s not the only superhero out there. The fearless and highly-trained father-daughter crime-fighting duo Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) have been slowly but surely taking down the criminal empire of local Mafioso Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong). Another fledgling superhero joins them by the name of Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), who happens to be Frank’s son.

Kick-Ass is based on the comic book of the same name written by Mark Millar and illustrated by John Romita Jr. When Mark pitched his story to Matthew Vaughn, director of the blockbuster film Stardust, the latter was impressed and immediately agreed to direct the movie and write the screenplay with Jane Goldman, also his co-writer of Stardust. Vaughn and Goldman were keen that their movie wouldn’t simply be a carbon copy of Millar’s book hence the back-story of Nicolas’ character Big Daddy.

Nicholas was offered the choice of playing Frank D’Amico or Damon Macready, a.k.a. Big Daddy, and responded strongly to the latter. He says, “I thought that was where the heart was, in the relationship between Big Daddy and Hit Girl. I thought that’s where the emotion could be.”

 See the cool gang of four do some nasty stunts in Kick-Ass as it hits theaters starting today.