Trivia / Kingsman: The Golden Circle

• All-Star Cast: The film stars Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Mark Strong, Halle Berry, Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges, Bruce Greenwood and Elton John.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Channing Tatum said that he enjoyed seeing The Secret Service and was interested in appearing in the sequel.
• Banned in China: The film is banned in Cambodia due to portraying the country as a haven for bad guys.
• Billing Displacement: Like with the first movie, Taron Egerton doesn't get top billing despite playing the main character. He does move up a few spots, though. Pedro Pascal doesn't get any billing at all, despite clearly having a major role. Elton John however, does get billed above the title, despite his scenes essentially being a gag cameo.
• California Doubling: A significant portion of the film is set in the United States and Southeast Asia, but almost the entire film was shot in the UK.
• The Cast Showoff:
  • Mark Strong shows off his singing chops when his character, Merlin, faces death.
  • Channing Tatum has been a professional dancer since well before his film career started, and gets to show it off when his character, Tequila, starts to exhibit the 'mania' part of the disease.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Much like Alan Taylor with Terminator Genisys's trailers spoiling The Reveal, Matthew Vaughn was not happy with this movie's trailers and posters spoiling Harry Hart's return.
  • Taron Egerton seems to agree that Eggsy and Tilde's romance wasn't that good of an idea.
• Dawson Casting: Hanna Alström (Tilde) is 9 years older than Taron Egerton in real life. However, the novelisation by Tim Waggoner implies that Tilde is supposed to be around Eggsy's age (a Freeze-Frame Bonus states that he is 27 in this film, the same age that Egerton actually was during filming). Tilde refers to Whiskey as "old" in the novelisation, but in real life, Alström is closer in age to Whiskey's actor Pedro Pascal, who is only 6 years older than she is.
• Defictionalization: Old Forester (a Kentucky whiskey brand) produced a limited edition "Statesman" bourbon for the film's release.
  • During the release of the movie, the Hard Rock Cafe restaurant had a "Poppy Special," a roughly-formed hamburger (hopefully, not the same kind of meat) and golden circles (onion rings), naturally
• Creator-Chosen Casting: Matthew Vaughn cast Pedro Pascal as Agent Whiskey based on his performance in Narcos, as real-life Drug Enforcement Administration agent Javier Peña.
• Deleted Role: Vinnie Jones' character, a second henchmen to Poppy, was completely cut from the film.
• Deleted Scenes: 80 minutes of deleted footage are known to exist, as confirmed by Vaughn in an interview with Collider.
• Died During Production: The King of Sweden was going to have a larger role in the third film, but Bjorn Granath's death after production concluded for the film prevented this from happening.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Jeff Bridges shaved off his beard for the film.
• Executive Meddling: Matthew Vaughn, in his own words, "begged" Fox not to reveal Harry's survival. They didn't listen and made it one of the driving forces of the film's marketing.
• Focus Group Ending: Merlin was supposed to survive. There's even some behind the scene photos on the internet of Mark Strong wearing green leggings to greenscreen in cybernetic legs during Eggsy's wedding. It was changed because test audiences didn't like it, felt it cheapened his Heroic Sacrifice.
• Reality Subtext: Harry Hart attempts to speak Italian in this film. The person with whom he's conversing, a real Italian, fails to understand him. In real life, Hart's actor Colin Firth learned Italian to impress his Italian ex-wife Livia Giuggioli (to whom he was still married by the time of this film's shooting and release), as well as her family. According to Firth himself, his command of the language remained pretty poor despite his efforts.
• Refitted for Sequel: The scene of Harry teaching Eggsy about proper table etiquette was meant to be in the first movie. It's instead shown here in a flashback.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Hoping that Colin Firth would return for the sequel, Matthew Vaughn said that he toyed with the idea of Harry having an Evil Twin before deciding to bring Harry back to life.
  • There were originally going to be mentions of the 2016 US presidential elections but were removed due to it being too soon. Notably, the movie's fictional President (played by Bruce Greenwood in a bit of a Casting Gag) was to be a direct Expy of real U.S. President Donald Trump, with his Oval Office covered in gaudy red-and-gold leaf à la Trump Tower, but these scenes were later re-shot with a more conventional-looking set and Greenwood putting on a broader Southern Accent, as Vaughn wanted to avoid alienating audiences with an overt political message.
  • Tequila was to have a bigger role in the story, but due to scheduling conflicts (because of Channing Tatum working on Logan Lucky), his role was reduced, and some of the scenes went to Whiskey. Notably, Whiskey got the lasso instead of Tequila.
  • According to Vaughn, Fox considered splitting the film into two films due to its original run time being three hours and 40 minutes, before he decided to cut 80 minutes into the final cut. He has said that he is planning to release the longer cut in the near future.
• Working Title: Kingsman: The Golden Triangle. It was retitled after test screenings during the early stages of production found it confusing and unaware of its meaning (it's the area that borders Thailand, Laos and Myanmar), though it was eventually referenced as the original name for the Golden Circle in the novelisation.

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