Lionsgate to open up a can of "Kick-Ass"

After making a splash with folks over at Comic Con last month, the new superhero action comedy "Kick-Ass" has finally been picked up by a U.S. distributor. Lionsgate announced it plans to give the Mark Millar ("Wanted") comic-book-based film a wide release next year.

Directed by Matthew Vaughn ("Layer Cake" and "Stardust"), "Kick-Ass" is the story of a kid who decides he wants to be a superhero just because (good reason enough in my book) and joins up with other powerless humans with the same ambitions. The film stars Nicholas Cage, Christopher Mintz-Plasse (aka McLovin') as a character named "Red Mist", soon to be household name Mark Strong (upcoming "Sherlock Holmes") and 12-year-old Chloe Moretz -- who was awesome in "(500) Days of Summer" -- as a the gun-toting, foul-mouthed "Hit Girl." Check out some bootleg Con footage and more info here.

After reading about some of the footage shown at Con including the fuzzy bit I linked to above, "Kick-Ass" looks like it will be one of the more successful of the ambitious superhero spin-offs. Vaughn's aforementioned two projects have demonstrated both his sense of humor ("Stardust") and capability for stylish action ("Layer Cake"), so I've no doubts we'll be clambering for "Kick-Ass" with "Iron Man 2" as the only other major superhero flick slated for 2010.