'Kingsman: The Golden Circle' Confirms The Return Of A Certain Spoiler-Ish Character
Kingsman: The Secret Service was one of the most pleasant surprises of 2014, a wild reinvention of old school spy movie imagery that never spared the gore while ruthlessly satirizing just about anything remotely connected to modern politics and espionage. It's a messy movie, but it's the best kind of messy – it has so much on its plate and so many targets in its sights that it moves breathlessly from one bizarre idea to another.
And it had a high body count, with large swaths of the original cast not living to see the credits roll. And now, a long-simmering rumor associated with the sequel, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, has been seemingly confirmed: a certain dead character will somehow make it back for the sequel. This feels like the kind of reveal that will inevitably surface in a trailer, but proceed with caution and consider this a spoiler warning.
This particular piece of news comes from Game of Thrones star Pedro Pascal, who plays the conspicuously named American agent Jack Daniels in The Golden Circle. He shared this image on Instagram, which features him posing on set with a character who was last seen being shot in the face:
Hide behind Harry. #SafePlace #Kingsman2 #TheGoldenCircle
A photo posted by Pedro Pascal (@pascalispunk) on
Yep, that is Colin Firth as Harry Hart, the British super spy whose shocking execution serves the huge turning point in the first film. His death is what lends weight to the entire second half of the film, where Taron Egerton's trainee is forced to rise to the occasion and save the world from mass genocide with a skeleton crew. Harry's untimely demise is an appropriate low blow – the best character in the movie is torn away in an instant.
We already kinda-sorta assumed that Harry was somehow going to be resurrected for the sequel. There was some chatter about Firth returning for a follow-up in the weeks after the first film's release and then there was that initial teaser poster for Kingsman: The Golden Circle, which all-but-screamed "HEY EVERYONE, HARRY HART IS STILL ALIVE AND HE IS BACK DESPITE HAVING A BULLET IN HIS HEAD." I'm sure the movie will have some kind of excuse (I'm putting good money on him being in a coma, because that's the obvious choice), but I can't help but wonder how the film will thematically deal with this situation. After all, him dying was really, really important to the endgame of part one. Will a resurrection undo that? I have faith that co-writer/director Matthew Vaughn and co-writer Jane Goldman will make it work.
Anyway, Kingsman: The Golden Circle is filming right now for a June 16, 2017 release date and the supporting cast also includes Channing Tatum, Halle Berry, Julianne Moore, Jeff Bridges, Mark Strong, Vinnie Jones, and uh, Elton John.