Matthew Vaughn

Writer / Director / Animation Department

Birthdate – March 7, 1971 (53 Years Old)

Birthplace – London, England, UK

Matthew Vaughn (birthname: Matthew Allard Robert Vaughn, and then re-named Matthew Allard de Vere Drummond) is a protégé of and producer for British filmmaker Guy Ritchie who has melded that director’s sensibility with properties in the Marvel Studios stable, such as the X-Men franchise. Vaughn’s big-screen debut was as a 25-year-old Los Angeles-based producer on The Innocent Sleep (1996), co-starring Annabella Sciorra and Michael Gambon, and on Ritchie’s acclaimed debut, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), with Vinnie Jones, Jason Statham, and Sting.

Vaughn made his directorial debut (and also as producer) in the London crime thriller, Layer Cake (2004), starring a pre-Bond Daniel Craig, Colm Meaney, Sienna Miller, Gambon, and Tom Hardy, and released by Columbia Pictures. Matthew Vaughn was director/co-writer/producer of his Neil Gaiman adaptation, Stardust (2007), starring Claire Danes, Michelle Phillips, Robert De Niro, Miller, Ricky Gervais, Rupert Everett, and Peter O’Toole, and grossing $137 million worldwide.

Vaughn’s first superhero movie (again as director/co-writer/producer) was Kick-Ass (2010), with Aaron Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloë Grace Moretz, Mark Strong, and Nicolas Cage, premiering at the South by Southwest film festival, and generating both controversy (for language and violence) and good box-office ($96 million globally). Vaughn was writer-producer of the thriller, The Debt (2010), directed by John Madden and starring Helen Mirren, Jessica Chastain, Sam Worthington, Ciarán Hinds, and Tom Wilkinson, grossing over double costs ($45.6 million) for global distributors Focus Features/Universal/Miramax.

Over the following ten years, Matthew Vaughn was director, writer, and producer on two franchises–X-Men and Kingsman. This started with Vaughn as director/co-writer of the $353- 353-million-grossing X-Men: First Class (2011), the series’ fifth installment co-starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Rose Byrne, January Jones, Oliver Platt, and Kevin Bacon  Vaughn shifted to producer (as well as a credited story writer) for the follow-up, the Bryan Singer-directed X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), with new cast members High Jackman, Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, Elliot Page, Ian McKellan, and Patrick Stewart, and more than doubling the previous movie’s return with a $746 million gross.

Vaughn co-wrote with Dave Gibbons the story concept (based on Mark Millar’s comic, The Secret Service) for Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014), and directed and produced the first movie in the series starring Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Strong, Taron Egerton, and Michael Caine, and earning a robust $414.4 million global gross.

Matthew Vaughn was again director/writer/producer of the sequel, Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017), with new cast members Julianne Moore, Berry, Elton John, Channing Tatum, and Jeff Bridges, and matched the preceding movie’s box office despite indifferent reviews. Vaughn returned as director/writer/producer of the prequel, The King’s Man (2021), with a new cast starring Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, Rhys Ifans, Harris Dickinson, and Djimon Hounsou, but under-performing commercially with a weak $126 million return for 20th Century Fox.

Vaughn returned as director-producer to the spy action-comedy mode but in an original vehicle, Argylle (2024), with Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Catherine O’Hara, Dua Lipa, Ariana DeBose, Bryan Cranston, John Cena, and Samuel L. Jackson, and released by Universal Pictures (in theaters) and Apple TV+ (streaming).

Matthew Vaughn has served as producer only on the following theatrically released movies: Snatch (2000), Mean Machine (2001), Swept Away (2002), Harry Brown (2009), Kick-Ass 2 (2013), Fantastic Four (2015), Eddie the Eagle (2016), Rocketman (2019), Silent Night (2021), and Tetris (2023).

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Personal Details

Matthew Vaughn was born and raised in London, England, by his late mother Kathy Ceaton, with his birth father being an aristocrat and banker George Albert Harley de Vere Drummond, a godson of King George VI. Vaughn’s godfather is Peter Morton, co-founder of the Hard Rock Café chain. Vaughn schooled at Sussex House School in London and Stowe School in Buckingham. After graduating from high school, Vaughn did some world traveling that introduced him to the film industry in Los Angeles as a film director’s assistant. Vaughn then attended and quickly dropped out of University College London. Vaughn has been married to model Claudia Schiffer since 2002; the couple has three children, Caspar, Clementine, and Cosima. Vaughn’s height is 6’. Vaughn’s estimated net worth is $30 million.

Filmography

Argylle

(2024)

Kingsman: The Golden Circle

(2017)

Kingsman: The Secret Service

(2015)

Kick-Ass

(2010)

Stardust

(2020)

Argylle

(2024)

Silent Night (2021)

(2021)

Rocketman

(2019)

Kingsman: The Golden Circle

(2017)

Kingsman: The Secret Service

(2015)

Stardust

(2020)

Swept Away

(2017)

Kingsman: The Golden Circle

(2017)

X-Men: Days of Future Past

(2014)

Kingsman: The Secret Service

(2015)

Kick-Ass

(2010)

Stardust

(2020)

Some Facts About Matthew Vaughn

What’s in a Name?: While his mother had a relationship with actor Robert Vaughn (who insisted on Matthew taking his last name), Matthew Vaughn later discovered from his mother that his actual birth father was aristocrat-banker George Albert Harley de Vere Drummond. Vaughn preserved his last name for the show business side of his life but otherwise changed his name in 2002 to Matthew Allard de Vere Drummond.

Awards

Three-time Nominee, Best British Film/Most Promising Newcomer, BAFTA Awards (1999, 2005, 2020); Three-time Nominee, Douglas Hickox Award/Best Director/Best Screenplay, British Independent Film Awards (2004, 2010); Nominee, EFA People’s Choice Award, European Film Awards (2010); Winner, Best Screenplay, Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Awards (2010).