UPDATE: Variety is reporting that LionsGate has indeed won this bidding war. The deal is said to be quite large, with a wide 2010 release expected.

Kick-Ass has an interesting story so far. The movie is based on a comic book by John Romita Jr. and Mark Millar, and was made by Stardust director Matthew Vaughn. The director couldn’t find any studios to back the film due to its incredibly graphic content and ultra-violence, so he found a way to raise his own money for it, and moved forward without the studio money.

Now that the project is finished, some footage was shown at the recent Comic Con, and wouldn’t you know it, people went completely nuts for it. Seeing this overwhelming positive response to the footage, multiple studios are now engaged in a fight to acquire the rights to distribute the movie.

It’s being reported that the studios currently vying for the rights are Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, and Lionsgate Entertainment. Word is that the eventual deal could stretch into the seven figures range and is expected to be picked up by one of these establishments very soon. Hopefully this all means that Mr. Vaughn will get back above-and-beyond what he’s put into it so far.

Kick-Ass stars Aaron Johnson as Dave Lizewski, your typical nerdy kid with zeros athletic ability who decides to create his own superhero alter-ego named Kick-Ass and fight evil. It’s not long before Dave realizes that “evil” usually means dangerous people with dangerous weapons who are not afraid to use them on him. Along this strange and violent path, he meets and teams up with some interesting characters, such as another young kid with an alter-ego named Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), and a kingpin named Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and his 10-year old daughter Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz), who just so happens to be deadly surgical with a Katana sword.

[Source: Risky Biz Blog]