Vaughn was born in Paddington, London, England.[2][3] Until 2002, he had thought that he was the child of a relationship between his mother, Kathy Ceaton (died 20 July 2013), and American actor Robert Vaughn.[4] A paternity investigation[3] in the 1980s revealed that Robert Vaughn was not his father, but Ceaton had never revealed otherwise to Vaughn. Upon asking his mother about his true paternity, she revealed that his father was George Albert Harley de Vere Drummond,[4][5] an English banker. Early in Vaughn's life, before the paternity investigation, Robert Vaughn had asked for the child's surname to be Vaughn, and it continues as Vaughn's professional name, though he uses de Vere Drummond in his personal life,[4] having changed it by deed poll in May 2002.[6]
Vaughn made his directorial debut in 2004 with Layer Cake. The film was well received and its success led to Vaughn being tapped to direct X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), but he dropped out only two weeks before filming began. Subsequently, he said the film was "pretty good" given the limited time they had to make it,[8] but he was critical of Brett Ratner's direction of the film.[9] For his next project he co-wrote and directed Stardust, followed by a movie adaptation of Mark Millar's Kick-Ass in 2010. Vaughn directed and co-wrote the first film in the prequel trilogy of the X-Men film universe titled, X-Men: First Class (2011).[10] Vaughn was signed to return to the series as director of the sequel, X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), but dropped out in favour of Bryan Singer who had directed the first two films in the original trilogy, X-Men and X2: X-Men United. Vaughn remained attached to the film by co-writing the script.[11]
Vaughn's next directorial project, was Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014), an adaptation of the comic book The Secret Service created by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons from a concept by Millar and an initially uncredited Vaughn himself (Vaughn being credited as the comic's co-creator on all republications since 2014).[12] The film was scripted by Vaughn and Jane Goldman, and produced by Vaughn's production company Marv Films.[13][14][15][16][17][18] Vaughn returned to direct, produce, and co-write the Kingsman sequel, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, which was released in theaters in September 2017. Vaughn also directed and provided the story for The King's Man, the third installment in the franchise serving as a prequel to the original film. Delayed from November 2019 due to both the schedule shuffle following Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox and the subsequent COVID-19 pandemic, the film was released on 22 December 2021.
In March 2017, Collider reported that Vaughn was top choice to direct Man of Steel 2;[19] in September of that year, Vaughn confirmed that he was in negotiations with the studio to helm the project.[20] By March 2019, Vaughn stated that discussions with Warner Bros. had ended, and he was no longer involved with development of the film.[21]
In January 2024, Vaughn announced that he would be producing a third Kick-Ass film, titled Stuntnuts Does School Fight, directed by his longtime stunt coordinator Damien Walters in his feature film debut, which had secretly already been greenlit and had completed filming.[24] also announcing two further films in the Hit-Girl & Kick-Ass franchise to be in development, to be produced by him as a trilogy, under the working titles Vram and Kick-Ass.[24]
^Phegley, Kiel (10 January 2012). "Millarworld Exclusive: Inside "The Secret Service"". Comic Book Resources. Archived from the original on 12 January 2012. Retrieved 12 January 2012. Mark Millar: "This education of a 21st Century super-spy forms the structure of the story. I can't give too much away because Matthew Vaughn and I co-conceived the thing with Dave [Gibbons], and Vaughn is literally right now writing the screenplay of the movie, so we're on a non-disclosure agreement for a little while yet. But basically, if I had to say anything else about it, I would say that this is our version of S.H.I.E.L.D. or U.N.C.L.E. or any of those brilliant super-spy concepts, but seen through that skewed perspective we brought to superheroes in 'Kick-Ass.' It feels very, very fresh. I don't think there's ever been a comic like this and all three of us are very excited about it. I've wanted to work with Dave since I was sixteen [so] it had to be something big."
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