'Kingsman 2' Poster Suggests A Certain Someone Is Returning After All

There's a whole lot about Kingsman: The Golden Circle that sounds new. Eggsy (Taron Egerton) will be heading across the pond to America for this new adventure, meeting new friends (like Ginger, played by Halle Berry) and new foes (like Poppy, played by Julianne Moore) along the way. But there'll be a few familiar elements as well, including Merlin (Mark Strong). And the first Kingsman 2 poster suggests another old friend has joined the fray.

(Spoilers ahead, though it doesn't look like the marketing team is exactly going out of its way to keep this particular plot point under wraps.) 

Here's the new Kingsman 2 poster, a version of which Egerton dropped on Twitter.

The poster stops just short of promising that Colin Firth's Harry Hart will return, but the signs aren't exactly subtle. Those are his signature tortoiseshell frames sitting on top of that very intriguing sentence: "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." And here's even more evidence Firth will reprise his role:

My sources are telling me that yes, Colin Firth will be back for KINGSMAN 2.

— Borys Kit (@Borys_Kit) April 7, 2016

Nothing official has been confirmed at this point, but it seems like a safe bet Firth will return in some capacity. Although the character was killed off in the first film, director Matthew Vaughn and co-writer Jane Goldman haven't been coy about their desire to see him return. Last year he admitted that if the film is successful enough, "I've got a feeling we'll figure out a way for having Colin back." Mark Millar, on whose books these films are based, has been pretty keen to see Firth return as well.

There are a number of different ways they could make Harry's return work. His murder happened at a bit of a distance, so they could hand-wave it away by insisting he wasn't actually killed, just severely injured. Or that he did die, but was resurrected somehow. (Has a certain Red Priestess been spotted lurking, perhaps?) Or even if he did die and stay dead, he could always return in flashbacks. There's also the "surprise evil twin" routine, as Millar has jokingly pointed out before. In any case, if James Bond and Ethan Hunt and Jason Bourne have managed to survive near-death experience after near-death experience, why not Harry Hart?

While we'll have to wait a little while longer to see just how Harry gets involved, here's what we do know about the movie. As previously reported, Kingsman: The Golden Circle sees Kingsman's London headquarters attacks and reduced to rubble, sending Eggsy and Merlin to the U.S. in order to team up with their American counterparts. That organization, called Statesman, is led by Jack (described as a "swaggering, sharpshooting cowboy") and Ginger. Meanwhile, Moore's Poppy is plotting to do... something evil. It's not quite clear what. But Vaughn seems pretty confident we'll love her, noting that "spy films are only as good as their villains."

Kingsman: The Golden Circle lands in theaters June 16, 2017.