Secondary Research

Secondary Research

When discussing the details of our opening sequence of 'KIN' with our peers, teachers and parents, we began to notice several similarities between our film and Kingsman: The Secret Service. Whilst our film is not an exact mirror of 'Kingsman', it still shares characteristics which Csenge and I thought would be interesting to discuss and analyse. Below is the Wikipedia description of the film:

"Kingsman: The Secret Service is a spy action-comedy film directed by Matthew Vaughn, and based on the comic book The Secret Service, created by Dave Gibbons and Mark Millar. The screenplay was written by Vaughn and Jane Goldman. It follows the recruitment and training of a potential secret agent, Gary "Eggsy" Unwin (Taron Egerton), into a secret spy organisation. Eggsy joins a mission to tackle a global threat from Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson), a wealthy megalomaniac. The film also stars Colin Firth, Mark Strong, and Michael Caine."

The outstanding similarity between our film KIN and Kingsman is the (lack of) relationship the protagonist, in this case 'Eggsy', has with their father. The idea of emotional distance was discussed between me and Csenge very early in the planning stage of our final task, as we felt it could be used to create an interesting dynamic between our characters, as well as the plot itself. This is reflected in Kingsman, as the death of Eggsy's father is ultimately what triggers the events of the film, and also helps to create immediate relationships with the film's supporting characters. This is a dynamic our film will hopefully replicate, as we feel it will engage the viewer, as it will discuss issues they can likely internalise and identify with.

Below are the financial statistics of the film, including it's estimated budget, gross and opening weekend performance.

Budget	$94 million (gross)[3] $81 million (net)[4]
Box office	$414.4 million[4]

*As of Wikipedia

Budget:

 $81 000 000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

 $42 000 000 (USA) (13 February 2015)

Gross:

 $128 248 205 (USA) (26 June 2015)

*As of IMDb

Box Office:

$119,469,511.00

*As of Rotten Tomatoes

This is the opening sequence of 'Kingsman The Secret Service', as well as some positive comments featured in the comments section of the video.

 

"I heard that song and knew this movie was going be good"

"No movie has ever put to rest any and all doubts I had about watching the movie so quickly." 

"The opening with the music and cool vibe is fantastic. But it would have been better suited to launch into an action scene or something because the way it cuts the music and straight to a talking scene means it loses a lot of its promise." 

Critics:

Chris Sawin rates the film five stars and says that it's "Obscenely and brutally shaken, not stirred". (A reference to the Bond movies' famous line "shaken not stirred" whenever he is offered a cocktail). He describes loosely what the film is about and goes onto speaking about Richmond Valentine who is repulsed by violence, but ironically condones violence among people. He also compares the film to Kick-Ass. He claims that the "plethora of vulgarity and raunchy humour" makes the film not only humorous but also human and relatable.

Conventions:
These are some thriller conventions exhibited in Kingsman, some of which may also be present in our opening sequence for KIN.

• 'Protagonist'/'Antagonist' divide

Three spies have to save the world from utter domination while Valentine and his sidekick, Gazelle, plan on creating a 'new world', selecting a few people to be part of this special 'elite' group while the rest of the world is taken over by anger enhancing chips in the form of phone sim cards.

• Special effects

There are a lot of scenes of violence including blood spill and very serious injuries. 

Special effects would also be needed to make much of the 'high-tech' spy gear look realistic.

• 'Damsel in distress'/ love interest

A princess is locked away while the villains attempt to complete their plan. Later she becomes a temporary love interest, much like the Bond films.

• Chase scene

The protagonist runs away from the bullies and performs interesting stunts.

• The 'good guys' always win concept

Although towards the middle of the film, agent Harry Hart dies, his death is avenged by agent Eggsy.

• Use of weapons

The agents receive many tools and weapons for self-defence e.g. guns, knives, tasers, some of them disguised as harmless objects such as pens.

• Ticking clock scenario

It is only a matter of time before people are taken over completely by violence and resort to killing each other, while a system countdown is performed.

Here is some data I gathered from http://thevore.com/top-movies/thriller-movies/ which shows the vast increase in thriller films released in 2016 compared to prior years. This as a whole could suggest an increase in popularity for the thriller genre, meaning our film KIN would likely be able to gain a large audience if we were to release it as a feature length production.

The table below lists some of the best performing thrillers of this decade, as well as their estimated budgets. Noticeably, some of the films featured on this list also appeared on our 'Audience Research Questionnaire'. Thrillers such as 'Gone Girl' and 'Skyfall' were mentioned by some of our respondents, who each gave each films positive and praising reviews. This will be useful as it will allow Csenge and I to adapt our feature to reflect some of these thrillers, similar to how we have (subconsciously) done with Kingsman The Secret Service.

List of highest grossing of the decade & their budgets

Title	Box office	Budget
Skyfall (2012)	$304.36M	$200M
Gone Girl (2014)	$167.74M	$61M
Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)	$166.15M	$40M
Jason Bourne (2016)	$162.16M	$120M
Argo (2012)	$136.02M	$44.5M