Fresh off the success of Kingsman: The Secret Service earlier this year (the R-Rated movie grossed over $400 million), it has today been confirmed that Matthew Vaughn will direct MGM’s big screen adaptation of the international best-selling novel, I Am Pilgrim.
Written by Terry Hayes, it tells the story of the adopted son of a wealthy American family, who once headed up a secret espionage unit for US intelligence. Now in anonymous retirement, he is called upon to lend his expertise to an unusual investigation but ultimately becomes caught in a terrifying race-against-time to save America from oblivion.
Interestingly, Hayes is actually adapting the novel himself, a departure for Vaughn who frequently writes the scripts he ends up directing (Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class for example). There’s a chance he’ll want to put his own spin on it when Hayes is done.
Regardless, Vaughn is also co-financing and producing I Am Pilgrim through Marv Films, and MGM’s President Jonathan Glickman had this to say in a statement released by the studio earlier today. “We could not be more excited to have a consummate filmmaker like Matthew to bring I Am Pilgrim to the screen. His sensibility, coupled with Terry Hayes’ incredible story, gives us the ideal team to bring this character to the world wide audience.”
What this means for the Kingsman sequel is unclear, though comic creator Mark Millar has Tweeted out that I Am Pilgrim will be the film Vaughn tackles when he’s finished with that…
