Matthew Vaughn has firmly established himself as one of the most exciting directors of his generation, and his early films Layer Cake and Stardust proved that he could master multiple genres. He adapted Mark Millar’s subversive espionage comic book series Kingsman into one of its era’s best R-rated action franchises. After Kingsman: The Secret Service blew audiences away with its sheer absurdity, Vaughn reunited the original cast for the somewhat underwhelming sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle. He next ventured into the past with his prequel The King’s Man, which explored the origins of the British intelligence network during the World War I era.

Update October 20, 2023: This article has been updated by Jessica Peerez with more recent developments regarding where the Kingsman franchise may head next.

Since The King’s Man’s release in December 2021, viewers have been wondering where the franchise may head. With Vaughn and Taron Egerton having claimed that there would be a new film added to the franchise, updates of the new projects were few and far between. However, it has now been confirmed that Kingsman: The Blue Blood will be added to the franchise. Despite confirmation of the fourth film, production reportedly has not yet commenced. With the unique franchise having many options to consider when crafting its next project, here’s where we think the franchise may go from here.

A Third Kingsman Film That Concludes the Original Cast
Marv Films

Kingsman: The Golden Circle was generally seen as a significant step down compared to the original film; the reintroduction of Agent Harry Hart (Colin Firth) felt like a strange direction for the franchise to move towards, as his death had a significant emotional impact on the first film, and led Eggsy (Egerton) to begin developing as an independent hero. That being said, Kingsman: The Golden Circle is far from the disaster many claim it is.

Vaughn has seen his other franchises completely butchered by underwhelming sequels; Kick-Ass 2 lost the satirical edge that had many of Vaughn’s original films from 2010 so entertaining, and any signs of the originality that Vaughn brought to the X-Men franchise with First Class were pretty much absent by the time Dark Phoenix hit theaters in 2019. The Golden Circle might not have been a classic, but as far as highly anticipated comic book adaptations go, it’s far from being a disaster on the level of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 or Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.

It will certainly be interesting to see Firth, Egerton, and the other returning cast members reunite for an excellent third chapter in the original Kingsman story to close out their adventures together and perhaps hint at what a future generation might be capable of. These characters ended up appealing to audiences that would be invested in seeing their respective fates, and making one more great movie to close out the trilogy would be a perfect way to ramp up excitement for future spinoffs and a broader cinematic universe. Adding to the appeal of the third movie is the fact that Vaughn has also spoken about his desire to add Dwayne Johnson to the already exciting cast. Vaughn plans to cast Johnson in the role of a yet unnamed villain in The Blue Blood yet nothing has been confirmed and this likely will change.

Speaking about Kingsman: The Blue Blood, Taron Egerton expressed that director Matthew Vaughn and him have “slightly different ideas about the direction it should take.” He also said that the new film would have to carry a different concept from its predecessors since Eggsy is no longer a child. Speaking to the Radio Times magazine, Egerton said:

“Now it’s 10 years on, I’m 10 years older, so I’d want it to be a different kind of story. I’d want it to be about that character, as opposed to just about saving the world.”

A Sequel to The King’s Man
20th Century Studios

The King’s Man starred Ralph Fiennes as Orlando Oxford, the Duke of Oxford, who creates the organization and becomes the first “Arthur” in command of the Kingsman’s version of the Knights of the Round Table. While the first two films had a strong element of dark comedy, The King’s Man was much more subdued and serious and truly invested in what the ramifications of war looked like. Orlando is motivated to continue the Kingsman after the death of his son, Conrad (Harris Dickinson), and by the end of the film, he assembles a new team.

While the first film ends its story right after the ending of World War I, it appears that the series plans to continue into the World War II era. A post-credit scene teased David Kross as a young Adolf Hitler, who would presumably serve as the next major villain. The association between the Kingsman films and real-world history has been fascinating, and it’s been a way for the prequel to stand out tonally from the first two installments.

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Vaughn has now confirmed that The King’s Man sequel will focus on the rise of Hitler. The director has also said that the new film will be titled The Traitor King. Speaking to Collider, Vaughn said “The next one is about the rise of Hitler, and how Hitler did come to power and basically was supported by the English aristocracy.” He went on to say:

“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.”

Interestingly, it still remains unconfirmed whether The Traitor King will come to screens as another film or a television series. Both offer interesting possibilities, with a television series offering more space for the narrative to be fleshed out. Vaughn has said that the format of the sequel is still being debated, alongside which projects will be prioritized in light of the WGA strike ending.

A New Kingsman Era
20th Century Fox

Considering that Vaughn has done such a great job at parodying the James Bond franchise, it would be interesting to see him tackle different eras in the Kingsman’s history. Vaughn clearly has an affinity for 1960s Bond movies, as even X-Men: First Class feels indebted to From Russia With Love and Goldfinger. This might be an interesting setting for another Kingsman spin-off series that turns the franchise into a more fluid set of anthology adventures.

Since Vaughn incorporated so many key historical events into The King’s Man, it might be interesting to go through major milestones throughout the 20th century and examine how the Kingsman may have been intertwined. Considering that Kingsman was a property owned by 20th Century Fox that now belongs to Disney, there are possibilities to develop projects on Disney’s various streaming outlets, such as Disney+, Hulu, or FX.

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At the time of writing, release dates have neither been confirmed for Kingsman: The Blue Blood nor The Traitor King. Although The Blue Blood was set to be released in 2023, it is unlikely that the film will take to screens this year. Production for the movie was initially scheduled to begin back in 2019. However, it was pushed back due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and filming for the movie has not yet resumed. If filming were to resume soon, it likely means audiences would not see a third movie in the franchise until 2025, which would be just in time for the ten-year anniversary of the release of The Kingsman: The Secret Service.