Hm. On the one hand, I’m 100% down for “The Statesmen” – a cowboy-themed American sibling outfit to The Kingsmen with Channing Tatum and Jeff Bridges as the U.S. equivalents to Edgerton and Firth? Inspired!
…on the other hand, Matthew Vaughn’s track record at sequels to adaptations of Mark Millar nonsense is about as bad as his track record for original adaptations of Mark Millar nonsense (my initially positive take on KICK-ASS 2 is about the wrongest I’ve ever considered myself in hindsight – KICK-ASS 2 is horrible) so… yeah, proceeding with caution here. Resurrecting Firth, especially considering it’s apparently a small enough deal to spoil this far out, especially reeks of doubling down on whatever worked last time rather than having a good narrative reason to continue the story.
The original KINGSMAN is a messy, problematic thing; but it’s also wickedly ingenious at points and it’s alarming just how good a product Vaughn can make by sanding the worst impulses of off Millar’s ugly try-hard nihilism. So color me hopeful, but I can’t shake a sense that everything is a franchise, and I’m not 100% convinced that the KINGSMAN “world” is actually interesting enough outside of Eggsy’s boy-to-man journey to not diminish upon continuation. We shall see.
MOVIEBOB CENTRAL 
You changed your mind on Kickass 2? What didn’t hold up, in retrospect?
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Worth considering Matthew Vaughan didn’t direct or write Kick Ass 2. Doesn’t mean the pitfalls are not still there, but Vaughan has never done a sequel to one of his films (unless I’m mistaken), so he could turn out to be great at it.
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I’ve never liked Kickass 2 as much as the original, which did surprise me when I saw your initial glowing review on it. Glad to see you’ve come around at least 😛
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Incidently, I would quite enjoy a ‘In Bob We Trust’ or something similar, where you talk about reviews you’ve made that you’ve subsequently changed your mind on. Kickass 2, Superman Returns etc.
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They also made a Kingsman meets Archer trailer. Can’t fault the guys from trying hard to make this a thing.
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