Jim Carrey has denounced his film "Kick-Ass 2" and said he can no longer support the film due to its "level of violence," especially in light of the Sandy Hook shooting, which happened a month after he finished filming, the The Star reports.
Carrey, who plays Colonel Stars and Stripes in the sequel to the 2010 blockbuster based on the "Kick-Ass" comic book, recently took to Twitter to apologize on behalf of the film and its graphic violence. "I did Kickass a month b4 Sandy Hook and now in all good conscience I cannot support that level of violence. My apologies to e," he wrote. "I meant to say my apologies to others involve with the film. I am not ashamed of it but recent events have caused a change in my heart."
When one fan asked Carrey why other tragedies such as Virginia Tech and Columbine didn't "change his heart," Carrey responded: "It did, over time. That's why my character doesn't use bullets. Evolution."
Mark Millar, the creator of the original comic book on which the films are based, posted a reply to Carrey on his Millarworld.tv forum, in which he praised Carrey as an actor, calling him "an unpredictable force of nature who brings a layered warmth and humanity to his work as well as that unstoppable energy he's always been renowned for."
"As you may know, 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," Millar wrote. "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. My books are very hardcore, but the movies are adapted for a more mainstream audience and if you loved the tone of the first picture you're going to eat this up with a big, giant spoon. Like Jim, I'm horrified by real-life violence (even though I'm Scottish), but Kick-Ass 2 isn't a documentary. No actors were harmed in the making of this production!"
Millar continued, "Ultimately, this is his decision, but I've never quite bought the notion that violence in fiction leads to violence in real-life any more than Harry Potter casting a spell creates more Boy Wizards in real-life. Our job as storytellers is to entertain and our toolbox can't be sabotaged by curtailing the use of guns in an action-movie. Imagine a John Wayne picture where he wasn't packing or a Rocky movie where Stallone wasn't punching someone repeatedly in the face. Our audience is smart enough to know they're all pretending and we should instead just sit back and enjoy the serotonin release of seeing bad guys meeting bad ends as much as we enjoyed seeing the Death Star exploding."
Carrey has not yet followed up with his tweet on whether or not he will donate his salary from the film to an anti-gun organization or join the film's promotional tour.
