Last year’s Kingsman: The Secret Service was one of 2015’s best cinematic surprises: a balls-out, badass spin on the James Bond mythos that gave Colin Firth one of his best roles and made a star out of the young Taron Egerton. It was also a pretty big hit for its studio, which made it none too surprising when a sequel was green-lit.
Now, thanks to Empire Magazine, that follow-up, which will also be directed by Matthew Vaughn, has not only an official title but concept art and glimmers of a premise.
Kingsman: The Golden Circle, as it’s been named (though Vaughn didn’t elaborate on the meaning of that subtitle), will apparently find the Kingsman headquarters destroyed à la Skyfall, with Eggsy (Egerton) and company legging it to America to visit “Statesman HQ,” where a “swaggering, sharpshooting cowboy” named Jack and another figure named Ginger (Halle Berry) run the show.
Stepping into the central villainous role is Julianne Moore, whose character Poppy runs an establishment called Poppyland. An amusement park, maybe? An evil amusement park?
In other news, Vaughn promises that The Golden Circle will include “a massive f***ing frankfurter” (yes please), a skiing sequence, one fight in a barroom, robot dogs, and one-armed henchmen – as well as an abundance of Bondian throwbacks, of course.
The director spoke a little more about bringing something fresh to the table for this sequel in his interview with Empire:
“I didn’t know if I wanted to direct this or not. I was worried about the villain. Spy films are only as good as their villains. Then one morning I woke up with the whole storyline in place, and a new villain plot.”
“You try not to read what people want, but they do want another church sequence. I have no reason for another massacre to happen. But I have other sequences you’ve never seen before.”
It sounds like Vaughn is taking his duties here very seriously, and I trust that he wouldn’t be back unless he had enough novel ideas to properly expand the Kingsman franchise. We may not have much information on what he plans to do with the sequel just yet, but we’re definitely very excited to see how it all turns out.
Kingsman: The Golden Circle opens June 10, 2017.