With The King’s Man opening in theaters this week, I recently got to speak to director Matthew Vaughn about making the Kingsman prequel. During the wide-ranging conversation, he talked about why he thanked Peter Jackson in the credits, the sequence WETA VFX worked on in the movie, crafting the Rasputin action scene with Rhys Ifans as Grigori Rasputin (which is one of the best action scenes you’ll see this year), why the editing process was the hardest of any of his films, why he wanted the film to be like The Man Who Would Be King meets Kingsman, how he worked with cinematographer Ben Davis on the aesthetic of the film, why he loved working with Brad Allen on the action scenes, and more. In addition, he talked about Kingsman 3 (which he hopes to start filming by September), how he cut out an hour of The King’s Man in the edit, how he hopes to show extended cuts of some of his films in a few years, and how he’s going to use some of the deleted scenes from Kingsman: The Golden Circle in Kingsman 3.
As you’ve seen in the trailers, The King’s Man is set against the backdrop of WWI and uses real history to show how the independent intelligence agency came into existence. Loaded with the kind of action you’d expect from Matthew Vaughn, a great cast, and a number of surprises you won’t see coming, I thought The King’s Man was extremely well done and can’t wait to see the next installment. The King’s Man also stars Ralph Fiennes, Djimon Hounsou, Gemma Arterton, Matthew Goode, Tom Hollander, Harris Dickinson, Daniel Brühl, Djimon Hounsou, and Charles Dance. The King’s Man is based on the comic book The Secret Service by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons, with story by Vaughn and screenplay by Vaughn & Karl Gajdusek.
Watch what Matthew Vaughn had to say in the player above and below is exactly what we talked about.
Matthew Vaughn
- If someone has never seen any of his work, what is the first thing they should watch and why?
- Why did he thank Peter Jackson in the credits?
- How Jackson taught him a lot about WWI and also had a hand in getting WETA to do the VFX on the WWI stuff.
- How did he work with cinematographer Ben Davis and what did he want to do on this compared to the other two Kingsman movies?
- How Davis is one of the best at shooting long lens photography.
- Why he wanted the film to be like The Man Who Would Be King meets Kingsman.
- Did he have a much longer cut of The King’s Man?
- How they cut about an hour out of the movie.
- How the editing challenge was making the real-life history, the Kingsman stuff, emotion, action and pathos all come together.
- Will fans ever get to see the deleted scenes?
- Why he doesn’t like to show deleted scenes out of context.
- Is he still thinking about using some of the deleted scenes from Kingsman: The Golden Circle in Kingsman 3?
- How did they craft the Rasputin action scene with Rhys Ifans as Grigori Rasputin?
- Why he loved working with Brad Allen on crafting action scenes.
