When Kingsman: The Secret Service was released in February 2015, it became one of the surprise hits of the year. The film was praised as a stellar and much-needed reinvention of the modern spy movie, with the stylized action sequences, in particular, being a big talking point. Kingsman was a distinct and memorable theatrical experience, and it made a big splash. Taron Egerton, who starred as the lead character “Eggsy,” immediately became one of the top names to watch in Hollywood. The rest of the cast, consisting of Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Strong, Michael Caine, and Sofia Boutella, were also praised for their strong performances across the board. In short, Kingsman: The Secret Service had all the makings of the start of a new major franchise.
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However, eight years later, the Kingsman series has all but disappeared. After one sequel, The Golden Circle, and one prequel/spin-off, The King’s Man, there is essentially no steam left in the series. Interest in the franchise, which is based on a comic of the same name written by Mark Millar, has dissipated. While Egerton and director Matthew Vaughn are still talking about making a third film in the series, at this point there is doubt that anyone would be interested in seeing another Kingsman movie at all. So what happened? How did this series with so much audience interest and creative potential end up falling so far? Here’s what we know:
A Disappointing Sequel
20th Century Fox
After the release and ensuing box office success of The Secret Service, development almost immediately began on a follow-up. It was announced soon after that Vaughn would be returning to direct the sequel, and the cast would be expanding as the film would introduce the American equivalent to the Kingsman secret service agency, the Statesman. New additions to the series included Halle Berry, Pedro Pascal, Channing Tatum, and Jeff Bridges as members of the Statesman agency, as well as Julianne Moore as the film’s villain, Poppy Adams. There was a lot of interest in the Kingsman sequel, which hit theaters in August 2017, just over two years after the first.
When the second film actually was released, it was immediately faced with several major hurdles. The biggest of which were the reviews, which panned the film as a significant step-down from its predecessor. Much of that sentiment carried over to the general audience as well. The word of mouth about The Golden Circle was not nearly as strong as it was for The Secret Service. Whereas the first film had a 75% critic approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the second outing dropped to a 50% rating. The audience score on the site also dropped by 20% with the second film, from an 84% to a 64%. As for CinemaScore, which polls audiences directly out of the theater, both films earned the same B+ grade. However, it quickly became apparent that The Golden Circle just didn’t have the same buzz around it as the first film.
From there, it was apparent that the Kingsman series needed a new direction if it were to continue. Instead of coming up with a fresh and exciting idea for Kingsman 3 and moving forward with that film, the odd decision was made to instead give the green light to a prequel spin-off film called The King’s Man. The film, set in the early 20th century, does not feature any of the same characters from the first two Kingsman films. Instead, it jumped back in time to tell the story of how the Kingsman agency was founded in the first place. Vaughn returned to direct this third film. When it was released in late 2021, the film was hit with the worst reviews of the series yet. It was smacked with a 41% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, though the fans that did see it were largely pleased, as it maintained the series’ B+ CinemaScore and jumped up to an 80% audience score on RT. Unfortunately, that fan base was way too small to actually drive the film to any sort of success.
Box Office Trends
The real story of the downfall of Kingsman is written in the box office receipts. The first film in the series, which was produced on a budget of $80-$90 million, opened to a modest $36 million domestically. It then fell just under 50% in its second weekend before showing strong legs that managed to bring in an impressive $414 million worldwide. Even after taking marketing into account, the first Kingsman movie likely doubled the investment put into it by 20th Century Fox. Combine that success with the fervor surrounding the film, and it’s no wonder why a sequel happened so quickly.
The Golden Circle was given a slightly higher budget of $104 million in the hopes that the film would be able to build on the success of the first outing. While there was solid anticipation for the film ahead of its release, it failed to really translate that anticipation into actual box office success. The film opened to $39 million domestically, which, while higher than the first film’s opening, wasn’t the big increase that was expected. As its theatrical run played out, it was clear that The Golden Circle wasn’t living up to the expectations that were set for it. When all was said and done, the film grossed $410 million worldwide, $4 million under where the first film had landed. Interestingly, the disparity between the domestic and international receipts had notably changed. While the first Kingsman had grossed $128 million domestically and $286 million internationally, the follow-up actually dropped to just $100 million in the US but then grew to $310 million overseas.
The Golden Circle likely still turned some sort of profit, so it was by no means a waste. The next film in the series, The King’s Man, is a different story. The prequel film was given a similar budget to The Golden Circle, with right around $100 million sunk into the film’s production. It was initially scheduled to release in 2019, but after being delayed to September 2020 before the pandemic set in, the film ended up not hitting, spiraling into the same constantly-delayed release strategy that affected so many movies at the time. It wasn’t until December 2021 that the film was eventually released in theaters. Despite the equivalent production and marketing costs for the film, The King’s Man did not perform remotely in the same vein as the first two Kingsman films. After a domestic opening weekend of a mere $5 million, the film only managed to pull in $125 million overall, with $37 coming from the US and $88 million from overseas. While some people would write this poor performance as a result of the pandemic, Spider-Man: No Way Home was also in theaters at the same time, and that film managed to gross almost $2 billion. While those are obviously very different films, the point still stands that people were willing to go to theaters to see a movie at that point, but they chose not to for The King’s Man.
A Complete Loss of Momentum
As a result of the general disappointment with The Golden Circle, and emboldened by the overall lack of interest in The King’s Man, the Kingsman series has lost much of the luster that it had following the release of the original film in 2015. The Golden Circle still performed well at the box office, but it was nowhere near where it should have been, and the overall impact the film had on audiences was significantly less than that of its predecessor. While the quality of the first film had kept interest in the series alive for over two years before the second film hit theaters, by the time 2017 was over people had already forgotten about The Golden Circle. Even further, when The King’s Man hit theaters over four years later, the interest in seeing another Kingsman movie was at an all-time low. The Kingsman brand just wasn’t as enticing as it had been years before, especially when the movie being presented was a prequel as strange as The King’s Man.
Unfortunately, at this point, the Kingsman franchise’s legacy is one of disappointment. While the timing of the second film was strong, the movie itself wasn’t. Because of that, the series failed to strike while the iron was hot. The Golden Circle ended up being a big swing and miss for the franchise, and as a result, overall interest declined significantly. Why a prequel that was just as expensive ended up getting the green light after that is a real head-scratcher, but it’s clear to see now that The King’s Man was a bad idea for the franchise. The series had already lost a lot of momentum after the disappointment of The Golden Circle, and the utter bombing of The King’s Man just made matters even worse.
And yet, Vaughn and Egerton still insist that a proper third entry in the Kingsman series is happening. Reports have been circulating for a while that the third film will be called Kingsman: The Blue Blood and that it will shoot sometime in 2023. Vaughn has also talked about a spin-off focused on the Statesman agency, but the chances of that actually happening are grim. Whatever the future for Kingsman holds, there’s no denying that its history has been rocky at best. The disappointment and lack of interest in the immediate follow-ups to the first film have cast the entire franchise’s stability into doubt. Perhaps a more direct third film in the series could bring some new life to the series and see it get back to where it once was, but the current state of the franchise is not a hopeful one.
