Matthew Vaughn chats Kick-Ass reboot, X-Men issues, studio battles

Last Updated on November 3, 2023

With this year’s New York Comic Con coming to a close, undoubtedly one of the biggest draws of the event was director Matthew Vaughn, who gave details on an upcoming Kick-Ass reboot, why he left X-Men: The Last Stand and his promising upcoming spy thriller Argylle.

In the wide-ranging Saturday panel that our own David Arroyo attended, Matthew Vaughn said that the Kick-Ass movies had such a positive impact on people (well, except for Jim Carrey) that he thinks new characters are also worth exploring. “Kick-Ass sort of changed people’s perception of what a superhero film is at that time. So we’ll be doing it again. So it’s none of the characters from the other Kick-Ass…We’d like to bring them back after the reboot. This reboot is just going off on a tangent that I can’t really talk about now. But it’s fun.”

As for projects that just plain didn’t work with Matthew Vaughn, he recalled what pushed him to leave 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand, citing an incident over Halle Berry. As it turns out, a version of the script had Storm saving children in Africa from a drought. Vaughn was actually into the idea — which seems a little exploitative to me — but once he found out it was a script more or less meant to lure Berry to the project and would be scrapped once she signed her contract, Vaughn was out, unable to believe they would treat her that way.

Having been in the business for more than two decades, Matthew Vaughn has definitely had his share of run-ins. For example, the studio wanted to add subtitles for Brad Pitt in Snatch, which he produced. He also hated that Paramount pushed for Rocketman to be rated PG-13 and couldn’t understand why they didn’t want Bryce Dallas Howard for Stardust.

Matthew Vaughn finally gave more information on Argylle, arriving in February. On the film — which stars Henry Cavill, Howard and Sam Rockwell — the director said, “Breaking new IP, not many people will be bothered but the studios are sort of learning now, that maybe you guys, the audience, do want original films…We wanted to do something very meta…I just loved the idea of what would happen if a wizard went to J.K. Rowling in book three and said, ‘You know what? Wizards are real. Hogwarts is real. I’m real. I’m going to show you what it’s really like,’ and going on an adventure.” He also shared the trailer and a clip.

As for other projects on the horizon, Matthew Vaughn is working on a musical and a third Kingsman movie, which was originally set to be a TV series.

What is your favorite Matthew Vaughn work? What are you most looking forward to from him?