Argylle Arrives At The Box Office With An Unimpressive $17.4 Million Opening Weekend

Update 02/05/24: With opening weekend ticket sales counted (via The Numbers), "Argylle" came out slightly ahead of Saturday's estimates with a domestic debut of $17.4 million. The headline has been updated to reflect this. Original article follows.

There's something to be said for keeping a movie's marketing simple. Matthew Vaughn's new action-comedy spy thriller "Argylle" opened in theaters this week, after more than two years of Vaughn claiming that the movie was based on an upcoming novel by mysterious first-time author Elly Conway. What little buzz there was around this movie generally revolved around Henry Cavill's flat-top hairstyle, complaints about the cat CGI, and speculation that "Elly Conway" might be Taylor Swift.

Those hooks weren't able to drum up more than $6.5 million on opening day, including Thursday previews, putting "Argylle" on track for a $16.5 million opening weekend (per Deadline). That's the same amount that "The Beekeeper" made with the relatively straightforward pitch of "Jason Statham is a beekeeper who kills people with honey and also with guns."

Determining a break-even point for "Argylle" is tricky. Like Martin Scorsese's "Killers of the Flower Moon" and Ridley Scott's "Napoleon," the film was financed by Apple in a mad splurge of spending designed to help the tech company break into Hollywood, so turning a profit on these individual movies isn't necessarily a priority. Apple TV+ bought the rights to "Argylle" from Vaughn's production company, Marv Films, back in August 2021 for $200 million. Apparently that's a number that Apple just really loves, since "Killers of the Flower Moon" and "Napoleon" both had budgets of around $200 million. 

Though it's been reported that "Argylle" also cost $200 million to make, that seems to be an error of confusing what Apple paid for the distribution rights with the cost of production. That $200 million deal also covered plans for at least two more movies, though those sequels are starting to look unlikely. Speaking to Deadline recently, Vaughn indicated that the actual budget was much smaller: "I don't know how you spend $200 million on it. I actually don't. Unless you're going to make a five-hour CG fest."

Oh, yeah. There is no Elly Conway, aside from the character played by Bryce Dallas Howard in the movie. It was just a marketing gimmick. The cat was finally let out of the bag in The Telegraph this week, which confirmed that the book was written as a tie-in for the movie, and was a collaboration between definitely-not-first-time authors Terry Hayes and Tammy Cohen. It's not an especially surprising reveal, since "Argylle" has no "based on" credit, instead attributing the script's authorship entirely to screenwriter Jason Fuchs. The Washington Post had already pinned down Cohen as the likely ghostwriter of the book several weeks prior.

Though Cohen and Hayes claim they never expected such levels of speculation, the identity of Elly Conway was definitely a deliberately manufactured mystery. "When I read this early draft manuscript I felt it was the most incredible and original spy franchise since Ian Fleming's books of the '50s," Vaughn dramatically proclaimed when the Apple deal was first announced, adding, "This is going to reinvent the spy genre." He was still hyping up the movie's fictional author as recently as last week, telling Variety, "I am begging Elly Conway to come out of the shadows."

Reviewers and audiences alike seem unconvinced that "Argylle" has reinvented the spy genre. The movie has a score of 34% on Rotten Tomatoes as of this writing, and received a dismal C+ CinemaScore from audience exit polling. According to The Hollywood Reporter, "Argylle" is expected to gross $16.9 million overseas in its opening weekend for a total global debut of around $33.4 million.