"I genuinely hope that one day I can sit here and talk about Kingsman 2 with you," said Matthew Vaughn when Empire spoke to him pre-Kingsman's release. Now that the film is out there, those conversations are happening a bit more freely. So although we should stress that Kingsman 2 in any form doesn't yet have the green light, we can also report Vaughn's perhaps surprising teasing that we may see more of Colin Firth's Harry Hart in future. We'll give you the trailer again below, after which there will be spoilers. So, y'know, if you haven't seen Kingsman yet...
So yes, Harry died. Samuel L. Jackson shot him in the head, in a nice anti-Bond moment of not putting the super-spy in an easily escapable position. "It was a big decision," Vaughn told us, "but you have to make a decision that’s right for the movie. I’m sure George Lucas had people saying, “Are you sure we want to kill off Alec Guinness in Star Wars?'"
But Ben Kenobi, in some form, came back, and Vaughn now reveals that he's thinking somewhat along those lines.
"A lot of people are very upset that Colin might not be in the sequel," the director tells USA Today, "but I’m coming up with ideas at the moment. If people buy tickets in America, I’ve got a feeling we’ll figure out a way for having Colin back."
How? "The opening of Kingsman 2 will have a sauna and the sauna door opens and out comes Colin. It was all a dream!" was Vaughn's suggestion to us. That, readers, is a joke, as is his idea that Firth could be "reincarnated as a talking mouse".
But there are probably ways and means... We only see Harry's body crumple to the ground in a long-shot, so it's possible that he isn't dead after all. Or we could be talking about flashbacks. We're probably not talking about Harry taking the form of a ghost from the Force. But does the Kingsman Q-Branch have his consciousness on server so that Eggsy can visit an A.I. version? Harry as JARVIS?
All questions and no answers, obviously, so feel free to give us your own outlandish theories in the comments below or via the social media outlet of your choice.
Kingsman: The Secret Service is in cinemas right now. Once you've seen it, we'd humbly suggest Empire's spoiler-special podcast makes an excellent postscript.