‘Argylle’ director Matthew Vaughn on almost directing a Bond movie + rebooting ‘Star Wars’

Director Matthew Vaughn had wanted to direct a James Bond movie but couldn’t get the gig, so he famously created his own spy franchise with the Kingsman movies. 

His upcoming movie Argylle also sees him playing in the spy movie genre.

To the Happy, Sad Confused podcast, Vaughn explained he landed the job directing Daniel Craig as Bond in 2006’s Casino Royale, at least according to MGM.

He had a lunch with that franchise’s guardians, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, and then got a call that he didn’t get the job after all.

Nowadays, “I’ve got more chance at being cast as Bond then directing Bond,” he joked to host Josh Horowitz.

“Ask them, they’re not keen on me,” he noted of the Bond franchise’s gatekeepers, adding, “Kingsman is my Bond…everything I do in Kingsman, I would’ve done in Bond.”

Vaughn is also a massive Star Wars fan, but he doesn’t want to play in that galaxy far, far away, either — except on one condition: “For me, doing a Star Wars movie is to play with the characters I love. If they said to me they’d reboot Star Wars and actually have Luke Skywalker, Solo and Vader and do your version of it…that would excite me,” he said.

“Star Wars is the Skywalker family and that’s where I think they’ve gone wrong. They’ve forgot,” he continued, adding the franchise “needs an epic new film.”

He added, “That’s what I would do [reboot Luke and the other characters]. Everyone is going to go bats*** crazy, but let’s bring it on…”

Vaughn’s star-studded meta spy adventure Argylle hits theaters February 2 from Apple and Universal Pictures.