Matthew Vaughn has come a long way since flopping with Stardust eight years ago. He made a popular franchise out of Kick-Ass, renewed interest in the X-Men franchise with the rebooting prequel X-Men: First Class, and this year he surprisingly had his biggest hit yet with Kingsman: The Secret Service. Now he's got a Kingsman sequel in the works, but first he's going to direct a movie titled I Am Pilgrim. Here's all you need to know about it:

It's not a comic book movie

Despite sounding like a Scott Pilgrim reboot, I Am Pilgrim is not based on a comic book or graphic novel. The reason this is worth noting is that Vaughn's last three movies were comic adaptations. 

It's based on a novel

Like Vaughn's first two (less successful) directorial efforts, I Am Pilgrim will be based on a novel. The literary debut of Terry Hayes, this international best seller is about an ex-spy code-named "Pilgrim" who must come out of retirement (and hiding) to help thwart a terrorist. It seems this evildoer is committing awful, untraceable crimes using a forensic pathology book written by the former intelligence agent. 

So it still sounds pretty much in line with his last two movies

Yes, given that X-Men: First Class is basically a Cold War spy movie at points, this would seem to form an espionage-based trilogy for the director.

Why does the name Terry Hayes sound familiar?

Although I Am Pilgrim is his first novel, Hayes is no newbie. You may know him as the cowriter of Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, as well as the screenwriter of Dead Calm. He also worked on the scripts for From Hell, Vertical Limit and Payback. He has now adapted his own novel for the screen.

He has two choices for whom should star

In a lengthy piece for the Random House New Zealand's blog, Hayes works out the difficulties of casting a part like Pilgrim, especially since the obvious choices (Daniel Craig, Tom Cruise and Matt Damon) already have their own spy movie franchises. He offers up Daniel Day-Lewis and Brad Pitt for different reasons. We'll see if he gets his either choice. 

I Am Pilgrim is set to be the start of a new franchise

Of course it is, and it won't just involve sequels to an adaptation. Hayes is currently working on at least a second Pilgrim novel, which would presumably provide the basis for the second Pilgrim movie.

Shooting will begin next year

We can probably look forward to the movie arriving in early 2017, since MGM should be looking to copy Kingsman's success.