British director Matthew Vaughn revealed Friday that he has a third “Kingsman” film planned. Vaughn said that, when penning the script for upcoming sequel “Kingsman: The Golden Circle,” he and co-writer Jane Goldman had already begun mapping out another installment.

“When we were writing it, we were thinking about ‘Kingsman 3’ too,” said Vaughn. “This is the bridge, if we can pull it off and get to make another one.”

He said he and Goldman envisioned “Golden Circle” as their “The Empire Strikes Back,” a second installment in a trilogy that “took you to a cliff edge” before letting the third film resolve matters. He told the audience that the script for “Golden Circle” had come easily and had all started with the villain, Poppy.

“She has a very insane but logical plot to take over the world,” Vaughn said of the character, who is played by Julianne Moore.

Vaughn spoke Friday at a 20th Century Fox event in Londonwhere he screened the complete opening act of “Kingsman: The Golden Circle,” which continues protagonist Eggsy’s, played by Taron Egerton, story.

The footage didn’t feature the new organization The Statesman, which can be seen in the recently released trailer. Vaughn said The Statesman was “to Americana what Kingsman is to Britannia,” adding that he was inspired by great American actors such as James Coburn, Steve McQueen and Burt Reynolds. He said he drew on their essence for The Statesman in the same way he used legendary British actors as an inspiration for The Kingsman.

“Everyone says it’s Bond, but it isn’t. It’s David Niven,” said Vaughn.

Vaughn said that he is currently 10 to 12 weeks out from completing “Golden Circle” and that he is still learning the challenges of making a sequel. “Hollywood does a lot of sequels, and they don’t enhance the experience normally,” said Vaughn. “‘Kick-Ass 2’ was a big learning curve of how not to make a sequel. We didn’t set out to make a terrible film.”

He also revealed there might eventually be more than one cut of “Golden Circle.” “I might be tempted to do a longer cut someday,” said Vaughn, who allowed a lot of improvisation on set. “It’s been hard cutting out lots of good stuff. I hate long movies and I’ve made a long film, so I’m struggling a bit with the length right now.”