Colin Firth has said that his return from the dead in Kingsman: The Golden Circle was always the plan.
However, despite a gunshot to the high, Harry Hart is back in The Golden Circle, fighting alongside Eggsy and new intelligence agency cousins Statesman.
The first film in the series, The Secret Service, was marketed on the Oscar winner playing a kick-ass, gentlemanly spy and showing young Eggsy how to become a Kingsman agent.
The movie has a good explanation of how this can happen (no spoilers here) but it still feels like a sudden change of plan.