Nic Cage’s next movie is a comic adaptation called Kick-Ass, and there’s at least a chance it won’t suck as much as everything else he’s done in the past three years. In part, that’s because the movie’s not really all about him. Thank god. Cage plays a cop who has trained his kid to take on drug gangs. Nic is a co-star.

Filming has just started on Kick-Ass, and pictures have leaked out from the set on TheBadandUgly. I’ve posted one of them to your right, a couple more below all of this blather, and there’s even more on their site. As you can see, Nic Cage has chosen to put his wacky hairdo above his lip for a change. I’m not sure if that’s better or worse.

Meanwhile, the movie’s screenwriter Mark Millar has been filing set reports over on his message board. That’s right, he’s using a message board and not a blog. Millar is kind of a blowhard, and he’s partly responsible for all the stupidity Warner Brothers is currently directing at their superhero franchise… but at this moment I have never respected anyone more. Thank you Mr. Millar, for having the courage to avoid posting on yet another stupid frakking blog.

Anyway, in his message board post Millar talks a lot about how well the first couple of days shooting went. Most encouraging is that he says Cage told him “it's the most excited he's been by a role in a long time.” Maybe that means he actually cares this time, and we won’t end up with another Bangkok Dangerous or Next. That would be nice. Click over to Millar’s post to read the rest of what he has to say. Of course it’s all praise because that’s what you do in Hollywood when you’re talking about the movie you’re working on, whether you mean it or not. Or at least that’s what you do, if you want to have another job after this one is finally over with. In this case though, Millar may actually mean it.