Matthew Vaughn to Direct Spy Thriller ‘I Am Pilgrim’ at MGM

Though he’s busy developing the sequel to Kingsman: The Secret Service that he’ll likely shoot next year, Matthew Vaughn is also investigating other corners of the espionage world.

Adapted from Terry Hayes’ 2014 book, the movie will tell the story of Pilgrim, the former head of a secret USA espionage unit.

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). Given the huge commercial success of the source material, I’d imagine a similar performance at the box office is all but guaranteed.

“We could not be more excited to have a consummate filmmaker like Matthew to bring “I Am Pilgrim” to the screen”, said Glickman. The hiring was announced by Jonathan Glickman, MGM’s President, Motion Picture Group. Vaughn is also producing the film and co-financing it through his production company Marv Films. Andrew Mittman will executive produce while Lloyd Braun will serve as producer.

More on I Am Pilgrim as we hear it. The book’s well worth a read, incidentally…

Vaughn is repped by WME and Brillstein Entertainment. The studio has several films queued up for 2016 including How to Be Single on February 12, Ben-Hur on February 26, Barbershop 3 on April 15 and Me Before You on June 3.

MGM bought the rights to the novel a year ago and hopes to launch a series based on it. Vaughn, a very solid director, is definitely good at franchise launches.