British filmmaker Matthew Vaughn (“Layer Cake”) was out and about promoting his upcoming Apple-made spy action pic “Argylle” at the New York Comic-Con over the weekend and dished about a handful of the forthcoming projects in various stages, including what is going on with the “Kingsman” franchise alongside confirming plans are indeed moving along with development for a reboot of his 2010 film “Kick-Ass.”
Those tidbits were collected by Deadline, who attended the “Argylle” panel where Vaughn revealed that “Kingsman 3” with Taron Egerton and Colin Firth is still apparently on the books, hopefully before the two of them get too old to make it.
READ MORE: Matthew Vaughn Isn’t Sure If He’ll Direct ‘Kingsman 3’ & Would Love To Do More Prequels
“We’ve got to get on with ‘Kingsman 3’ because I was joking that Colin [Firth] is going to end up being a portrait on the side while Taron is Arthur,” the director told the New York Comic-Con crowd. “So we are working on that at the moment.”
The third installment in the adaption of the Mark Millar comics (published by Marvel Comics imprint Icon) focuses on a secretive group of tailors that have developed their own intelligence agency that thwarts all sorts of international terrorism via advanced gadgets and skilled fighting techniques. They also use codenames associated with King Arthur’s Knights of The Roundtable and also have an American branch referred to as The Statesman, previously led by Jeff Bridges’ Champ. There had been previous chatter from Vaughn about expansions such as doing a television series (“The King’s Man” originally was planned as a TV series) alongside a potential Statesman spinoff that could easily be led by Channing Tatum’s Tequila alongside their own talented quartermaster, Ginger Ale, played by Oscar-winner Halle Berry, but that seemingly never went anywhere.
At the same panel, Vaughn stated they are still working on the “Kick-Ass” reboot that is likely to be directly inspired by the comic book version, where an African-American woman, Patricia Lee, ends up taking on the persona.
“Kick-Ass changed people’s perception of what a superhero film is. We’re doing it again,” Vaughn told the panel via Entertainment Weekly. “None of the other characters from the other ‘Kick-Ass’ are in it, though we’d like to have them back after the reboot. I can’t really talk about it, but it’s fun!”
That’s not all. His last feature film, 2021’s “The King’s Man” starring Ralph Fiennes, was sort of released under Disney’s new studio management at 20th Century Studios without much fanfare, but it sounds like a sequel to that is also in the works with a sort of tasteless aspect thrown into the mix. After tackling the Great War, the sequel is said to be focused on the “rise” of Adolf Hitler as the film’s main villain and how his rise to power was connected to British royals/aristocracy, such as Nazi sympathizer King Edward III, who abdicated the throne to marry Wallis Simpson.
“The next one it’s it is about the rise of Hitler, and how Hitler did come to power and basically was supported by the English aristocracy,” Vaugh told Collider. “So I was like, ‘well, that’s interesting,’ and how the world was worrying so much about Communism that Fascism rose up. And I look at the world at the moment, everyone getting distracted and worrying about this [and that], and if you worry too much about [this], bad things can happen here. So it is a story that I think needs to be recalled. We’re calling it The Traitor King.”
That said, the original ‘King’s Man” spin-off bombed in 2021, grossing all of $37 million in the U.S. and only $125.8 million worldwide, so it’s very possible that Vaughn is over-estimating the value of his entire “Kingsman” franchise at this point and maybe even the global interest in “King’s Man 3.”
There are also expectations, given the $200 million-plus that Apple shelled out for “Argylle,” that it will also become a franchise that Vaughn will have to oversee, as well as the projects at MARV Films keep expanding. “Argylle” will be distributed by Universal Pictures and will hit theaters on February 2. Perhaps its success and or failure will really demonstrate the appetite for Vaugh’s spy-movie-franchise aspirations in the future. Disney, who now owns the ‘Kingsman’ brand, will surely be watching closely.