With its stylized, hyper-violent combination of impeccable tailoring, razor-blade artificial limbs, and anal sex jokes, Kingsman: The Secret Service became a surprise hit for 20th Century Fox in the spring of 2015. A similarly well-dressed sequel was soon announced, prompting everyone from Halle Berry to Channing Tatum to Elton John to begin circling around the project like a gang of monocle-wearing sharks around a solid-gold bucket of bespoke chum. But now enthusiasm around the film—titled Kingsman: The Golden Circle—seems to have cooled, to the extent that Collider reports that the film has been pushed back once again, from June 16, 2017 to October 6, 2017.
That puts The Golden Circle in direct competition with Denis Villenueve’s also presumably stylish Blade Runner sequel—which would seem to be a bad box-office strategy, except that the original Kingsman’s success was at least partially attributable to its status as an alternative to FIfty Shades Of Grey’s box-office domination (no pun intended) on both films’ shared opening weekend. There’s arguably more overlap between Blade Runner and Kingsman fans than Fifty Shades and Kingsman fans, though, so it remains to be seen how this date change will play out. It’ll be a good weekend for men’s fashion, regardless.