Lionsgate have announced an April 16th 2010 release date for
Matthew Vaughn's comic book movie
Kick-Ass, and have set
Slyvester Stallone's men on a mission war picture
The Expendables to an August date. Looking to repeat the modest success of
Watchmen this year, Lionsgate are bringing
Kick-Ass to the masses early, in a non competitive month where anticipation for
Iron Man 2 opening a month later will be extremely high. They are hoping fans will look to
Kick-Ass to tide them over, and from the exciting footage we've seen, hell maybe
Kick-Ass will be the comic book movie of next year. I mean it's not total faith from Lionsgate but this late in the day, they weren't going to give it a May/June/July slot up against mega touch competition - the April date is confidence enough that they have something special on their hands. And personally as much as I loved Tony Stark's first outing,
Kick-Ass is the one I'm more looking forward to next year. Kick-Ass competition on that day will be the
MacGruber big screen adaptation and
Piranha 3-D! Well I know what I'm seeing that weekend guys.
For
The Expendables, they have clearly looked at
Inglourious Basterds, an unusual kind of summer blockbuster and they clearly feel they can attract the same kind of audience. And I can guarantee Stallone has had one eye on the San Diego Comic Con all along and he knows he will send the place in raptures if he brings out himself with the likes of
Dolph Lundgren, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Randy Corture, Eric Roberts,
Terry Crews and
Steve Austin. One would think
Bruce Willis and
Arnie, who make small cameo's in the film, wouldn't go to the Con if their life depended on it. Lionsgate, always something of an unusual film company, sent out these news stories
via twitter instead of one of the trades, which kind of let me feeling a little cold. But I gotta say, it's unsual for Lionsgate to possess two movies I'm desperate to see but they have managed it in 2010.