Disney and 20th Century have officially delayed The King's Man to August 2021. Matthew Vaughn launched the Kingsman franchise in 2014 with the release of Kingsman: The Secret Service, which starred Taron Egerton as Eggsy. The film was a sleeper hit and convinced Fox to make a sequel, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, and begin developing plans for a bigger franchise. In addition to Vaughn's work on Kingsman 3, he developed a franchise prequel focused on the origins of the Kingsman organization.

The King's Man was made prior to the Disney-Fox acquisition becoming official in early 2019, but it has yet to be released in theaters. Disney originally delayed the film as they figured out how to incorporate 20th Century's releases with their own and avoid directly competing with themselves. This eventually moved The King's Man to 2020, but it got delayed again due to the coronavirus pandemic. Disney pushed the prequel to early 2021 with the hope that COVID-19 would be mostly behind the world and theaters would be fully operational.

Related: The King's Man Is Fixing The Mistakes Of The Golden Circle

With the pandemic still ongoing, per Variety, Disney has decided to delay The King's Man once more. Instead of hitting theaters on March 12, 2021, the Kingsman prequel will now be released on August 20, 2021. The five-month delay now means The King's Man will be released nearly two years after its original November 2019 release date.

MI6 Kings Man

This new delay for The King's Man comes as Disney and the rest of Hollywood move their releases out of the spring and early summer. Sony delayed multiple films recently and MGM decided to push No Time To Die to October 2021. Disney still has two films scheduled to be in theaters before May, but both Nomadland and Raya and the Last Dragon have announced deals to also release on streaming. It appears Disney and 20th Century are more comfortable delaying The King's Man again instead of potentially considering the film for a streaming release of its own.

By the time The King's Man finally comes out, it will be fascinating to see just how successful it proves to be. The first two Kingsman films made around $400 million worldwide, but The King's Man doesn't feature any known characters. Ralph Fiennes is a fairly recognizable star and the marketing materials previously released did generate some excitement. Since the public now will have waited so long for The King's Man, there's no telling if there is still interest in it. Vaughn has bigger plans for the Kingsman franchise beyond the prequel, so he'll need the new film to be a hit to get the TV shows, sequels, and spinoffs he's developing off the ground.

MORE: The King’s Man Theory: The Movie’s REAL Shadowy Villain

Source: Variety

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