When Argylle landed at the start of 2024, it was met – by and large – with a slew of negative reviews. Matthew Vaughn’s spy romp, in which Bryce Dallas Howard’s espionage author Elly Conway finds herself caught up in a real spy story, saw the Kingsman filmmaker engage with a different tone of action-adventure story than he’d previously explored. But while the film was welcomed by some viewers, it also received some starkly critical reactions – and grossed just $96.2 million at the box office, before making its way to Apple TV+. It was not exactly what Vaughn hoped for, having imagined Argylle as the starting point for all kinds of adventures to come, both in the ‘real-world’ setting inhabited by Conway and Sam Rockwell’s Aidan Wilde, and the fictional world of Conway’s novels led by Henry Cavill’s Agent Argylle.
In a major new Empire interview, Vaughn got candid on the reaction to Argylle. Was it disappointing, to garner such a critical reception? “Fuck yeah,” he admits, explaining why he wasn’t prepared for the kickback. “My guard came down on Argylle. We had done test screenings that had gone fantastically well. The premiere was a really fun night, and it was like going back to the Snatch days where there was such excitement. And I started drinking the Kool-Aid.” The reaction was an abrupt shift, given the film’s light and playful tone. “It’s a fun, feel-good movie, or I thought it was a fun, feel-good movie,” he reflects. “We didn’t make Citizen Kane, but fucking hell, then the reviews came out and I’m like, ‘Wait, what have I done to offend these people?’ They were vitriolic. I’m not saying the movie’s perfect by any means, but I didn’t think it was offensive. That took me by surprise.”
Once the verdicts dropped, Vaughn went out of his way to figure out what might have been lost in translation. “I even went round to cinemas because I thought, ‘Maybe I’ve lost the plot now.’ It did rattle me,” he says. “I’m genuinely scratching my head about that, because you can’t ignore it. It wasn’t like [just] a few bad reviews.”
Ultimately, Vaughn remains philosophical about how Argylle was received. “It is what it is. You learn from these things,” he says. And should audiences come round to the film, we may one day see those additional Argylle adventures that the filmmaker had envisaged. “We’re doing very well on streaming,” Vaughn notes. “People are liking it. Nothing would make me happier than making another one. I’m getting texts saying, ‘Wow, those reviews were fucking harsh!’ The more we can get people to watch Argylle, the more chance we make another one. I’d love to make another one, we’ve got it planned.” And yes, that includes the teased ‘Young Argylle’ prequel. “It’ll make a good little movie. We’ll see,” says Vaughn. “Never say never.” One more mission, anyone?
Read Empire’s full Matthew Vaughn interview – talking the reaction to Argylle, 20 years of Layer Cake, and what comes next – in the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice issue, on sale Thursday 6 June. Argylle is streaming now on Apple TV+.