Matthew Vaughn
Birthdate: Mar 7, 1971
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).
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.
Known For
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).
Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film
BAFTA Awards
Carl Foreman Award for the Most Promising Newcomer
BAFTA Awards
Critics Choice Award
Critics Choice Awards
Filmography
director
Previous (5)
- 2024 |
- 2020 |
- 2017 | Kingsman: The Golden Circle
Kingsman: The Golden Circle
After the Kingsman's headquarters is destroyed and the world is held hostage, an allied spy organization in the United States is discovered. These two elite secret agencies must band together to defeat a common enemy.
- 2015 | Kingsman: The Secret Service
Kingsman: The Secret Service
A spy organisation recruits a promising street kid into the agency's training program, while a global threat emerges from a twisted tech genius.
- 2010 |
actor
Previous (14)
producer
Previous (3)
- 2021 | Silent Night (2021)
Silent Night (2021)
Nell, Simon, and their boy Art are ready to welcome friends and family for what promises to be a perfect Christmas gathering. Perfect except for one thing: everyone is going to die.
- 2019 |
- 2017 | Swept Away
Swept Away
A trip into the Mediterranean sea becomes a trip into the discovery of how society's frameworks of the rich and poor are delicate and temporary.
writer
Previous (1)
- 2014 | X-Men: Days of Future Past
X-Men: Days of Future Past
The X-Men send Wolverine to the past in a desperate effort to change history and prevent an event that results in doom for both humans and mutants.
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.
