1. It got a CinemaScore of a B, with men under 25 giving it an A, but everyone else giving it CONSIDERABLY lower. Seeing as how the majority of folks in attendance were men under 25, that means the other folks didn't just dislike it-- they hated it. It's a love-it-or-hate-it flick-- bad news for something off the beaten path like Kick Ass.

2. In my personal opinion, the film is a mixed bag in every sense of the word. Some sequences I loved, others left me scratching my head, others I found corny, others I found guilty of the very thing they seemed to be satirizing. If a film is going to be a hit, an ambitious mixed bag is VERY rarely gonna fit the ball. Why would I sit through parts of a film I didn't like again? See also: Vaughn's previous film, Stardust.

3. Finally, there's violence. Out of the top 100 grossing films of all time, I count MAYBE four that I would consider "violent:" Passion of the Christ, Matrix Reloaded, Saving Private Ryan, and Terminator 2. Two of them are sequels, the other two are "important" films. Why would the layperson sit through all that bonecrushing gutsplattering violence a second time, or recommend to women or any man over the age of 40 that this is a film they absolutely must see?

This is all a matter of opinion of course. But folks didn't really like it overall according to Cinemascore, and with the film achieving mixed results and carrying an unusually large amount of violence, the real question is: why did people think it would be a hit in the first place?