Film studio Lionsgate had a little fun toying with fans of The Batman, which hit theaters Friday, by releasing their own Nicolas Cage-starring parody trailer called The Matban: Uncaged.
As you might expect, the video features many clips of Cage from the film Kick-Ass as the unhinged vigilante Big Daddy, who is very much styled after and a parody of the Dark Knight, but in the more grounded, realistic universe of the 2010 film.
The trailer also featured a tongue-in-cheek clip of the newest actor to play Batman for real, Robert Pattinson, from the Lionsgate movie Twilight.
In addition, clips of the upcoming Lionsgate film The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, which stars a fictionalized version of Cage, was also woven into the trailer for good measure. (That film hits theaters April 22.)
It’s a fairly lighthearted nod to the comic book blockbuster currently dominating people’s weekend plans but does not mention The Batman by name, which makes us slightly confused as to why Lionsgate seemingly reversed course on publicizing the Matban parody trailer. The video is currently unlisted on YouTube.
“[H]oly nicolas it’s matban!” the studio wrote on Twitter early Friday morning while sharing the video, in a now-deleted tweet.
It’s been almost a decade since Kick-Ass 2 hit theaters back in 2013, making many fans wonder when a Kick-Ass 3 might be hitting cinema screens. Sadly, the latest update from original comic book creator Mark Millar, back in Nov. 2021, is that a third installment of the film franchise is not likely to occur at this point.