The King’s Man will determine if a Kingsman film franchise can succeed

The upcoming prequel The King’s Man will lay the groundwork for Kingsman 3.

The Kingsman film franchise has been a surprising hit ever since the first film released in 2014. A mixture of science fiction and espionage, The Kingsman: The Secret Service followed a young man named Eggsy (Taron Egerton) who was nothing more than a casual hooligan. He meets a man named Harry (Colin Firth) who one day takes an interest in him. Harry begins training Eggsy to be the newest member of the Kingsman, a covert agency of spies that work for the betterment of the United Kingdom and the world. The first film was a huge success and birthed a sequel, the Golden Circle, under the watchful eye of series director and series producer Matthew Vaughn.

The sequel, while still good in its own right, missed landing as well as the first film. Now a prequel is set to debut soon that will detail how the organization began. While the franchise is based on a comic book title of the same name, the films and books aren’t that similar other than the corp concept. No one thought this would be a franchise making opportunity when the first film premiered.

Yet, here we are, looking at the third film (The King’s Man) in the series about to drop later this year (hopefully). The prequel film needs to work, and it needs to capture an essence that makes fans not only love the concept of the film but also makes them want to show up for more. The fourth film overall and third in the Eggsy-centric portion of the franchise will be directly set up by the prequel. If the King’s Man flops with its story than the third Kingsman film will surely flop as well.

Putting some unneeded extra pressure on the film, that’s set to come out during a global pandemic.

This doesn’t just affect the third Kingman’s film, which is loosely looked at as the end of the Eggsy trilogy but could affect potential new King’s Man films and the talked about spinoff franchise; the Statesman. The Statesman is the idea spun-out from the Kingsman sequel, the Golden Circle, that would see Jeff Bridges, Halle Berry, and Channing Tatum reprise their roles in a United States-centric spy-film. If that film does well, more than likely, it would get a threequel treatment as well.

You’re looking at six potential films that all hang on the backs of one prequel. The King’s Man can’t afford to be bad.