Argylle follows Elly Conway, the homebody novelist who writes about thrilling spy adventures. However, she is dragged into the actual world of espionage when her books hit a little too close to reality, gaining the attention of a deadly criminal syndicate. Aiden, an actual spy, saves her, so he says, from being abducted, killed, or both Elly and her cat, Alfie, are foisted into a world full of lies and more danger than she could have ever imagined.
Matthew Vaughn is the brilliant mind behind the wildly popular Kingsman franchise, building it out with three films thus far and a number of others in the pipeline. While at New York Comic Con, Vaughn announced a ton of exciting news, including a Kick Ass reboot and that Kingsman: The Blue Blood is expected to begin filming next year. He directed Argylle, which was written by Jason Fuchs and based on the yet-to-be-released novel by the real Elly Conway.
Screen Rant spoke with Matthew Vaughn about his new movie Argylle during New York Comic-Con. He teased influences for Cavill’s character, why he included his cat in the movie, and how Romancing The Stone inspired him. Vaughn also revealed what fans can expect from the end of Eggsy’s story, The King’s Man sequel, and which era he wants to explore within the world of Kingsman. Vaughn broke down what he believes the problem is with superhero movies and which franchise he wants to reboot.
Matthew Vaughn Talks Argylle & Kingsman: The Blue Blood
Screen Rant: I love the trailer!
Matthew Vaughn: Good thing about the trailer. To me, I told the studio you’re only allowed to cut a trailer from the first 28 minutes of the movie. So that’s why I’m excited because everyone’s like, “Oh my god!” I’m like, Oh, you like that? You’ve got no idea what you’re about to see afterwards.
I’m so excited. That’s so cool.
Matthew Vaughn: Yeah, it’s going to surprise people.
One of the things I really love because I grew up watching James Bond with my dad. We have all the DVDs. And I love that Henry Cavill is playing; it almost feels like a wink and nod to James Bond in the sense that he’s a fictional character within this world.
Matthew Vaughn: Yeah, maybe.
Maybe. So, how does he kind of tap into that James Bond-esque feeling but elevate it to be its own character?
Matthew Vaughn: I said to Henry, Argylle is a mixture of Bond, Ivan Drago, because of Rocky 4, and just a bit of Superman spice. And he gets it. He was a delight and is a delight to work with and be with. Henry is one of the greatest, sweetest men.
Kingsman kind of set this new standard for spy movies by bringing the fun and the bombastic action into it.
Matthew Vaughn: Right.
What do you hope that Argylle does for the genre to kind of set it apart from other spy-style movies?
Matthew Vaughn: Well, without giving a lot of it away is difficult, but what I can say, and this will surprise people, when I say this, Argylle is the ultimate movie. So people are going to go in, and they’re expecting one thing, and they’re going to get a lot of what they’re expecting and hoping for, but they’re going to get a lot more bang for their buck, shall we say? We get away with the cake and eat it because I’m sort of shining a spotlight on some of the tropes that I’ve done before, and I’m reinventing them in a different manner, but they’re still there. So you get some of that anyway.
This was all born out of me watching, during lockdown, Romancing the Stone with my daughters, and my daughter’s flipped for it. And they’re like, Why is nobody making movies like that? And I thought about it really long and hard. And I got really excited because I went, Oh, hold on. A) We had two hours of escapism from a pretty weird time in our lives. And we were all in it. B) I’d forgotten how good the film was. And C) then I remembered it was the first time I had a successful date, shall we say, because I was thinking, Well, I enjoyed this movie so much? And I went. Oh, I remember now.
And I remember when I went on the date, I said, Let’s go out and see a film. And I thought Romancing the Stone, that sounds like a good film, to take a girl on a date. And then I turned out liking it more than she did. So I was like, This is amazing. I was totally confused, and I think it made me relax on the date because I was thoroughly enjoying the movie and I just fell into the screen. I thought I want to try and recreate that in a more modern way, but in a way that will surprise people. I haven’t seen Lost City, and now people who’ve seen both are like, Yeah, it’s not Lost City at all.
Can you talk a little bit about the casting process? Because I think it’s really interesting that you kind of have these corners of worlds within worlds with this. You have the book, you have the spy craft area, and then you have Bryce Dallas Howard, who has somehow been drawn into the crazy.
Matthew Vaughn: Yes. So one of the ideas I had when I was given the books, book one is coming out in January, but I read the book, and I thought, This is really great. I don’t know how to make this into a movie on its own and break through on random IP. But I was then told what two, three, four, and five are going to be, and then I decided, well, imagine if JK Rowling, after book three of Harry Potter, suddenly a real wizard went and said, You know what? You got a lot of this right. You got a shitload of it wrong. And she went, What are you fucking talking about? and then went to Hogwarts, and it’s real.
And I thought, well, that’s a great way of introducing the Argylle books. I mean, the meta thing went over because after Romancing The Stone. That’s why it all was, Oh, wait, hold on. We can do a bit of Romancing The Stone. So the plan is that the book’s coming out in January. So after this, we actually shoot Book One with no Elly Conway. So we’ve got this and then maybe a book two with Elly Conway. It’s pretty crazy.
Wow, that’s really cool.
Matthew Vaughn: Yeah, it’s different.
Yeah. I mean, I just really love the world-building you do. I loved it with Kingsman. You establish it, and you go into the Statesmen and then the origin story of it. So I’m very excited to see you do that with Argylle as well.
Matthew Vaughn: So we’re trying. I’m proud of it. It’s a cool film. It’s fun.
Is there a particular character or era that you really want to dig into further?
Matthew Vaughn: Yeah, I mean, we’ve written—we call it Kingsman: The Traitor King—which is about the rise of Hitler and how the English aristocracy helped Hitler come to power. So again, we think it’s a piece of history that should be told properly. And I love the idea of doing a Kingsman set in the 60s; I just think that would be fun and just different. But the most important thing we need to do before, I joked, is get on with Kingsman 3; the idea is that I don’t want Taron being Arthur at the end of the table and Collin being a portrait.
So we need to conclude that story, and they’re very keen to get back onto it. And yeah, Argylle has taken a lot longer than I thought it would. Making that, this was my lockdown movie, and it’s hard. We had to do a lot of CG work. Yeah, the movie business is going through a rough time.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Are you excited to bring that Eggsy and Harry arc to a close? Because I’ve loved how we’ve seen Eggsy grow from this rebellious punk kid into someone who’s built a family and found a purpose.
Matthew Vaughn: Yes, yes. Imagine if that purpose disappears, is all I’ll say. The two of them need each other one more time.
I know it’s been delayed a number of times at this point, and we have the strike still going on and everything. And then, with Argylle, I’m curious when the strike concludes. Do you guys kind of have an idea? Can you start relatively soon after that? Is it going to take a while longer after that?
Matthew Vaughn: I think when the strike concludes, the business is going to have a shock because I think right now nothing’s happening because of the strike, but I think the world and economics have gotten so bad that there needs to be reset anyway. So we’re just trying to calibrate everything. We’re not rushing to do anything, and I’ve got Argylle. I’m going to promote Argylle on my own. So I have to do that until it comes out. But next year, we will get busy, but we’re going to walk instead of run.
I do also love that you used your own cat in Argylle.
Matthew Vaughn: Yeah, yeah. Well, that wasn’t by design; that was due to having an acting cat that was terrible. One day of filming with this other cat, then I went home. I said to my daughter, I’m borrowing Chip. And she’s like, What for the day? And I was like, no, three months minimum. And I did.
I didn’t think it through because I had to drive to work with the cat in the car with me; the cat was in my trailer with me, the campus. And then the only person the cat wanted to be held by was me, and then thank go to Bryce; he liked Bryce. But I became the cat wrangler on the film, and I hadn’t quite thought through the ramifications. I probably spent more time looking after a cat on this movie. And admittedly, pre-movie, I’m more of a dog person. I’ve got dogs, and I love my dogs, and the cats like the girls. Yeah, whatever. By the end of it, I fell in love with Chip. Yeah, crazy, huh? Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.
I love your superhero stuff as well. I love Kickass and X-Men: First Class, and I really, really wanted to see Flash Gordon. With DCU and MCU going through these transition phases, is that a genre you’d like to hop back into? And if so, what draws you to different heroes and their stories?
Matthew Vaughn: Yeah, I mean, what really freaked me out was that I really enjoyed The Flash. I thought it was a really good film, right? And it died at the box office, right? And I’m like, Wait, hold on, this is a good movie. What happened? And I don’t know whether that was superhero fatigue; you’ve just seen it done. So even now that we’ve made it well, there was some really, really complicated, hard, and quite special, unique filmmaking in that film. Which I don’t think Muschietti got enough credit for what they pulled off.
And so it made me question. I think there’s been so many bad superhero movies as well that it’s like when the Western got, you make so many than you get bored of the genre, not because the genre is bad, but because the films are bad. I was old enough, sadly, when Batman and Robin came out, and it was terrible. I was a big Batman fan, and we were like, Ah! And then superheroes stopped, and then they came back. Now, I’ll be intrigued to see how The Marvels does.
I genuinely don’t know what’s happening with the superhero in the sense that, I do think, maybe we all need a little bit of time off from it. Maybe someone will make something so great that we will get excited again and remind everybody that just having identikit ways of making superheroes… Superhero films are films. It’s a film that has superheroes in it. I think what happened was that they became superheroes, and the film part wasn’t that important.
When you’re making a superhero movie, you sort of have to work harder because you’ve got to make people believe it. That’s why X-Men First Class was pretty grounded. We set it in the Cuban Missile Crisis; they had relatable human problems. And it wasn’t relying on the CG. I think CG’s fucked up everything as well, because you feel like you’re watching a video game. You’re not with the characters. Apart from Guardians, I still think Groot and the racoon are fucking pieces of genius, that I feel so much for them. So I’ll be intrigued. I think at least DC is under; I think James Gunn and Saffron they’ve got a good chance of popping, and hopefully, Feige will go back to less is more and make less films and concentrate on making them great.
But for me now, if someone asked me, what would you do? For me to get back into the world of somebody else’s characters and other franchises, I mean, I was joking. I said this as a joke, and now, yeah, maybe I would do it. If they wanted to reboot Star Wars, set the story with the Skywalkers. And then I’ll go, Hey, that will be interesting. Because for me, it’s got to be something so bold, so different, and so brave. They said you can’t do that. I was like, There’ve been three Spider-Mans, Bonds. Like, what are you talking about? Why can’t that happen? I don’t control Star Wars, but I would do something big, brave, and with the great characters. I want to see Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, and Chewie doing their shit. Not some distant cousin. Who cares? I need an event for Star Wars.
I think it’s so interesting how you blend fiction with real-world elements.
Matthew Vaughn: Yes, you have to. That’s what I’m saying; otherwise, you can’t relate to it. Yeah, you’ve got to put humanity in everything. I always say, the crazier it is, the more human it has to be.
Argylle premieres February 2 on Apple TV+, while Kingsman: The Blue Blood will release in theaters in 2024.
