Kingsman The Secret Service

Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman: The Secret Service was a movie that came out of nowhere and took the world by storm. Functioning as a satire of the spy genre, while also paying homage to classic James Bond films, Kingsman: The Secret Service is a unique beast, to say the least.

Not only did this R-Rated action-comedy do well at the box office – grossing 410 mil USD with an 81 mil USD budget – it also managed to receive praises from the critic’s circle as well (74% on Rotten Tomatoes). Naturally, a sequel was penned and Kingsman: The Golden Circle is set to be released later this year. What’s interesting about Kingsman: The Golden Circle is that unlike the first movie, director Matthew Vaughn and co-writer Jane Goldman, worked on the script with a third movie in mind.

In a Q&A session with Deadline, Matthew Vaughn had this to say:

Weirdly while we were writing Kingsman 2, we were thinking of Kingsman 3 as well, which is odd. We’ve got a big idea for that. This is sort of the bridge and if we can pull this off, we’ll make another one.

There’s always a big risk when filmmakers think of sequels too early. However, it looks like Matthew Vaughn has put a lot of thought into it.

I was very hesitant about making a sequel purely because so many sequels don’t really enhance the experience. They’re normally bigger but not necessarily better…Kick-Ass 2 was a big learning curve of how not to make a sequel. We didn’t set out to make a terrible film.

This is great news. Kingsman: The Secret Service is first and foremost a great standalone film. Vaughn didn’t dedicate large portions of the film’s runtime to setting up sequels or universes. I would hate it if Kingsman: The Golden Circle is nothing more than a filler or a bridge towards the third entry in this franchise. Judging my Matthew Vaughn’s excellent track record though, I think we’re in safe hands.