Will Lionsgate Dash Hopes for a Kingsman 2 Sequel?
Director Matthew Vaughn had a lot of uphill battles going for him when he took on Kingsman: The Secret Service… it was based on a relatively unknown comic book series, it starred a widely unknown Taron Egerton, the early plot and trailers seemed more like a spy-comedy rather than an action-spy film and, finally, its release in February almost drove the final nail in the coffin as it is a month known for poor box-office results. But it was the “little engine that could” as it reached an astonishing $412 million world-wide! It even received generally positive reviews, achieving a 75% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 7.8 out of 10 on Internet-Movie Database.
It is no small wonder, then, why Twentieth Century Fox has already green lit a sequel. There is only one big problem: Taron Egerton got the lead in Robin Hood: Origins, produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, that is looking to begin shooting in February creating a conflict with Kingsman 2’s production. However, Fox does have first dibs on Egerton as per his contract and even though they do not even have a shooting schedule, they aren’t budging.
Lionsgate, the studio producing the Hood-movie, is much further in pre-production and is already making offers for actors to play Robin’s “Merry Men”, according to The Hollywood Reporter. They go on to say that similar “tug-of-war”-battles have broken out with star talents like Jennifer Lawrence when it came to disputes about scheduling conflicts for Hunger Games and X-Men. But we do hope that they work these issues out because it would be great to see “Eggy” back on the silver screen as well as see Taron expand on his star power.
