Aaron Taylor-Johnson's best action movie is on TV tonight

Aaron Taylor-Johnson hit the headlines this week as the rumoured top choice for taking over Daniel Craig as the next James Bond. While we wait for an official confirmation, we can see where the British actor started to become an exceptional action star on TV tonight.

Kick-Ass is airing at 12:35 am, early Sunday morning (March 24), on BBC One.

If that's too late for you or you had other plans, don't worry — the movie will be available to stream on BBC iPlayer shortly afterwards.

Before being cast as Pietro Maximoff, aka Quicksilver (Wanda's brother), in the MCU, Taylor-Johnson led in Kick-Ass – a lesser-known Marvel adaptation based on the comic book of the same name, created by Mark Millar and John Romita.

Directed by Matthew Vaughn (Argylle), the movie follows nerdy teenager Dave Lizewski, who sets out to become a superhero under the name Kick-Ass.

Despite a serious lack of special powers, training or muscle mass, Dave gets into plenty of fights and eventually meets fellow superheroes Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and 11-year-old Hit-Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz). They show him the ropes while planning their own vendetta against crime boss Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong).

Kick-Ass has some insane action sequences and brutal violence. Expect many broken bones and pools of blood in its very intense two-hour runtime.

Taylor-Johnson is leading another Marvel comic adaptation this year with Kraven the Hunter, which follows Madame Web as part of Sony's Spider-Man Universe.

In 2024, he is also reuniting with director David Leitch (Bullet Train) in The Fall Guy and starring in Robert Eggers' new film Nosferatu. With rumours that he could become the new 007 floating around, this might be a very important year for Taylor-Johnson.

For now, Kick-Ass holds his second-best critics' rating on Rotten Tomatoes (it's at 77% with 268 reviews) – only behind his critically acclaimed breakthrough movie Nowhere Boy (2009), where he played a young John Lennon.

That was also the movie where he met director Sam Taylor-Wood (now Sam Taylor-Johnson), who he has been married to for 12 years.

Kick-Ass is airing on BBC One at 12:35am on March 24 and will be available to stream on BBC iPlayer shortly afterwards.

Deputy Movies Editor, Digital Spy  Mireia (she/her) has been working as a movie and TV journalist for over seven years, mostly for the Spanish magazine Fotogramas. 

Her work has been published in other outlets such as Esquire and Elle in Spain, and WeLoveCinema in the UK. 

She is also a published author, having written the essay Biblioteca Studio Ghibli: Nicky, la aprendiz de bruja about Hayao Miyazaki's Kiki's Delivery Service.   During her years as a freelance journalist and film critic, Mireia has covered festivals around the world, and has interviewed high-profile talents such as Kristen Stewart, Ryan Gosling, Jake Gyllenhaal and many more. She's also taken part in juries such as the FIPRESCI jury at Venice Film Festival and the short film jury at Kingston International Film Festival in London.    Now based in the UK, Mireia joined Digital Spy in June 2023 as Deputy Movies Editor. 

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