Possibly the greatest challenge that writer/director Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman prequel The King’s Man will have to face, besides figuring out where Elton John could possibly sneak in a cameo, is coming up with something to replace the series’ usual litany of gadgets. Which is why it’s probably a good thing that rather than try to come up with some sort of World War I-era tchotchkes that could ruin a person’s day, this new film will have more of a human factor, as evidenced by actor Gemma Arterton’s Polly and a network of “cleaners."
While some of these operatives do indeed have skills that could straighten your closet and keep your study straight, Gemma Arterton explained to CinemaBlend and a group of journalists who visited the set of The King's Man that these “cleaners” are more of the Michael Clayton/Ray Donovan type:
Well, because I run this network of spies in, you know, cleaners and waiters and butlers and they're all over the world. I sort of run that with Djimon [Hounsou's] character... you know, there's all this, if you're a cleaner, a cleaner in a big business, big corporation, you get to see all of this stuff. Or even like a cleaner at the White House or something, you get to see loads of things and people don't even see you. Often when you're a cleaner, they just don't even notice you. And so we use those people in order to get information and to tap phones and steal things.
Gemma Artherton’s Polly and Djimon Hounsou’s Shola seem to have quite the group of busy bees that can get them any information they need from even the most fortified corners of power. Considering they’ll be helping Ralph Fiennes and Harris Dickinson fight a war against Grigori Rasputin himself, it’s a good thing too, as they’ll need all the information they can get.
We learned about this development firsthand, as CinemaBlend’s own Gabe Kovacs was able to observing the magic being crafted to bring to life the first point of history in the Kingsman universe. In the new movie, the foundation for the series and its titular warriors is being laid out to potentially tell other stories in the past history of Mark Millar’s graphic novel universe.
It’ll also be interesting to see how both Polly and Shola’s characters are eventually tied into the more modern era of the Kingsman franchise, as the third and final film in the Harry/Eggsy relationship is the next order of business. With each film, the series has expanded quite adeptly to the new factors thrown in each time.
As The King’s Man is set to throw it all back to World War I, Matthew Vaughn’s hyperkinetic style of action is going to make an interesting contrast to the style and weapons used in combat at that moment. With Gemma Artherton’s Polly employing her network of cleaners in the name of intelligence gathering, that’s just another exciting difference that will make the movie as different as Vaughn has promised in previous interviews.
The King’s Man defends king and country in theaters on February 14, 2020; and there’s plenty more where that came from in terms of box office action for next year! If you want to see what else is headed our way, take a look at the 2020 release schedule to get a glimpse of the future.
