It’s been a long time coming, and many people may have even forgotten the movie existed, such is the length of time it has been delayed, but a new trailer for Matthew Vaughn’s The King’s Man is here to remind you that the Kingsman prequel is finally coming to theaters on December 22nd.
Production initially wrapped in the spring of 2019, with the third installment in the tongue-in-cheek espionage franchise being hit harder than most by the effects of the pandemic after suffering multiple delays. It was originally scheduled to arrive in November 2019, before being pushed back to February 2020.
Once COVID-19 ground the entire world to a standstill, it was shunted further back to September 2020, and then again to February of this year. Once Disney reshuffled the deck once more due to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase Four delays, The King’s Man was moved again to August, before finally settling on the current December debut.
It was a Fox movie when Vaughn first called action, but the latest chapter in the R-rated series is now being distributed by the Mouse House through the rebranded 20th Century Studios. The King’s Man is set a century before the adventures of Taron Egerton’s Eggsy, which instantly gives the project a distinctly different aesthetic, tone and overall vibe, with much of the self-aware humor being jettisoned in favor of a grittier war film.
Vaughn has already teased that The King’s Man will sow some major seeds for Kingsman 3, but first and foremost, let’s hope that it delivers a grandstanding blockbuster that performs well enough from a critical and commercial perspective to ensure the studio is happy for Eggsy’s third outing to get the official green light.
