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The stars of Russian writer-director Timur Bekmambetov’s Universal Pictures adaptation of the cult classic comic book series Wanted graced the red carpet last Wednesday for the film’s premiere. And if you look carefully in the background of the mountains of photos that will inevitably appear of Angelina Jolie at this event, you might catch a glimpse of the true mastermind behind the soon to be success or failure of Hollywood’s most recent foray into the comic book universe (Wanted hits theaters this Friday), author Mark Millar himself. Surrounded by the members of his family, Millar dished on his role as the producer of another planned cinematic adaptation of his work, specifically a graphic novel titled Kick-Ass, written by Millar and artist John Romita, Jr. (often referred to in the comic universe as JRJR, he worked for Marvel from the 1970s to the 2000s).

Rumors abound that Kick-Ass will be co-written and directed by Stardust producer Matthew Vaughn (and, more significantly, for those of us who worship semi-awesome foreign action films, the producer of L4yer Cake, Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels). During his appearance on the red carpet last week, Millar said:

“I’m working as a producer on ['Kick-Ass'] as well, so I’ve been involved for about eight months, believe it or not. The comic didn’t come out until February, but we made the deal on the movie back in December. The script was finished six months ago, and it starts filming on location in New York in August. So it’s moving really fast.”

Not wanting to divulge any of the film’s most important secrets, the Scotsman refused to extrapolate on casting decisions, although they are all completed. Millar said only that:

“The casting’s all been done, and everything’s all in line now with that. There’s two big names attached, which I can’t mention so we can get on the cover of ‘Variety.’ And now we’ve got everyone. The kids who show up at the end of issue #3 – we just cast the girl, and that was a really tricky one because we needed to find someone who could do martial arts stuff. So the whole movie’s ready to role.”

So what we now know: 1. Kick-Ass will probably involve a hot chick who can ‘kick-ass’ with some major martial arts moves; 2. I’ll probably be buying a copy of Variety magazine sometime in the next year; 3. we will have to wait and see as to whether or not another Millar-Bekmambetov collaboration will again result in fundamental changes to the story/plot of what is a pretty ‘kick-ass’ comic book (pun intended), as is the case with the duo’s cinematic adaptation of Wanted (as you might remember, our own Robert Fure wrote an excellent “Boiling Point” entry on the subject just a couple days ago); and 4. Mark Millar is just such a sly devil, now isn’t he?