20th Century Studios’ new trailer for “The King’s Man,” the upcoming prequel to the “Kingsmen” films, shows how the secret British spy agency came to be in the midst of the death and destruction of World War I.
The trailer features Ralph Fiennes as the Duke of Oxford, who brings his idealistic son Conrad (Matthew Goode) into the Kingsmen in much the same way that Harry Hart would take Eggsy under his wing nearly a century later. With the help of fellow agents like the sophisticated Polly (Gemma Atherton), the Duke and Conrad must foil a plan by the world’s worst tyrants to exterminate millions of people, with Grigori Rasputin (Rhys Ifans) serving as the Duke’s biggest foe.
While the green band trailer doesn’t show any of the over-the-top gore that “Kingsmen” has become famous for, the stylized fight scenes and tracking shot of a torpedo sinking a battleship is a pretty good sign that the shift to an early 20th century setting isn’t going to change what made the series a cult hit.
The film was originally set for release in November last year but was pushed back to February 2020 and again to this September after Disney acquired 20th Century Fox and its remaining slate of films.
Series creator Matthew Vaughn returns as director, producer and co-writer, sharing screenplay credit with Karl Gajdusek. The film also stars Tom Hollander, Harris Dickinson, Daniel Brühl, Djimon Hounsou and Charles Dance. It is set to hit theaters on Sept. 18.
Watch the trailer in the clip above.