'The King's Man' has fun with history in final trailer as 'Kingsman 3' prepares to start shooting

Forget everything you know about World War I before checking out the final trailer for The King's Man. Adopting an alternate/secretive approach to world history that wouldn't feel out of place in an Alan Moore comic, this last batch of footage introduces us to the film's main villains: a secret cabal made up of some of the worst individuals of the early 20th century.

You've got Gavrilo Princip (Joel Basman), the Serbian assassin who kicked off the First World War by murdering Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo. And who could ever forget Grigori Rasputin (Rhys Ifans), the incredibly strange Russian monk and advisor to Czar Nicholas II who was said to possess otherworldly powers? Then there's Mata Hari (Valerie Pachner), a dangerous femme fatale and exotic dancer, who may or may not have been a spy for Germany.

We've seen the movie and can tell you that one of its biggest strengths is the absolute fun it has with these notorious historical figures, gathering them up into a WWI-era version of SPECTRE, hellbent of throwing the globe into utter chaos. Who is the Blofeld stand-in leading these nefarious personalities? Ah, now that's part of the mystery we shan't be spoiling here!

But just as important is the formation of a counter-agency (led by Ralph Fiennes' Duke of Oxford) to snuff out the villains' dastardly plans before they can gain a proper foothold. Gemma Arterton, Rhys Ifans, Matthew Goode, Tom Hollander, Harris Dickinson, Daniel Brühl, Djimon Hounsou, and Charles Dance co-star.

Check out the final trailer below:

The King's Man (exclusively in theaters next week) will not be writer-director Matthew Vaughn's last hurrah in this universe based on the graphic novels by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons. According to ComicBook.com, the filmmaker is ready to kick off production on a third Kingsman film starring fan favorite characters Eggsy Unwin (Targon Egerton) and Harry Hart (Colin Firth).

"We're all set to go," Vaughn told the outlet. "We start filming in September." He didn't elaborate beyond that, but we already know that the events of The King's Man will have a bearing on Kingsman 3. "We've put seeds for what's going to happen in Kingsman 3 all the way back into this," the director said in August of 2020. "And it's going to be very different."

Written by Vaughn and Karl Gajdusek, The King's Man arrives on the big screen next Wednesday, Dec. 22.