Matthew Vaughn has been in the filmmaking game since 1996, but he’s perhaps best known for 2010’s Kick-Ass and 2014’s Kingsman: The Secret Service. His upcoming movie Argylle has made sure to put the latter movie front and center for its marketing, and it’s likely there are diehard fans hoping for some kind of resurgence for either (or both) franchise.
While promoting Argylle at New York Comic-Con on Saturday, Vaughn made it quite clear he fully intends to get both Kick-Ass and Kingsman back out into the world. He revealed he plans on rebooting Kick-Ass, saying it would be would feature different characters from Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Dave and Chloë Moretz’s Mindy that headlined the first two movies. (That said, he did indicate he’d be down to bring them back at some point in the future.) “Kick-Ass 1 sort of changed people’s perception of what a superhero film is at that time,” he said, “So we’ll be doing it again. […] This reboot is just going off on a tangent that I can’t really talk about now. But it’s fun.”
Based on the Image Comics by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr., the original Kick-Ass starred Dave Lizewski, a comic book fan who decides to try his hand at being an actual superhero and gets his ass kicked. He eventually gets better at it, linking up with Mindy Macready and her father Damon (who operate as the crimefighting duo of Hit-Girl and Big Daddy) to take down a crime lord. The films ended with 2013’s Kick-Ass 2, while the comics continued with both a series focused on Hit-Girl and a new character named Patience Lee taking on the Kick-Ass mantle.
But first, Vaughn hopes to begin filming Kingsman: The Blue Blood, with series stars Taron Egerton and Colin Firth set to return to their respective roles as Eggsy Unwin and Harry Hart. (Provided the SAG-AFTRA wraps up sometime soon.) Unlike Kick-Ass, the Kingsman franchise has managed to stick around in folks’ minds more thanks to two follow-ups: 2018’s Kingsman: The Golden Circle, and The King’s Man from 2021, which wound back the clock to World War I and the birth of the titular spy organization.
With a steady resurgence of superheroes getting brutalized and a present vacuum of James Bond, there’s good opportunities for Vaughn to take advantage of with the two franchises that he cut his teeth on. As far as the spy genre is concerned, it seems like he’s truly committed to it even outside of Kingsman, as Argylle will hit theaters on February 2, 2024 and eventually Apple TV+.
[via The Hollywood Reporter]
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