A poster for Argylle
Argylle, director Matthew Vaughn's newest spy movie, got mixed news at the U.S. box office.
Good news? It was No. 1 for the Feb. 2-4 weekend with an estimated $18 million, Exhibitor Relations Co. said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
The bad news? The $18 million figure isn't much for a movie that has ambitions of starting a franchise.
The "costly wannabe blockbuster basically had theaters all to itself in an extremely depressed marketplace," ERC said in its X post. "That ain't good, folks."
Vaughn's film concerns a novelist (Bryce Dallas Howard) who has come up with a series of novels featuring an agent named Argylle (Henry Cavill). But the novels are uncomfortably close to "real" life and the novelist is now being pursued by spies.
At least that's what was shown in trailers for the movie. There are additional twists and turns, which have been revealed in some reviews.
Vaughn has long had an interest in spy stories. In 2004 and 2005, the director said he intended to do a spy movie that would have the title of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. but have little in common with the 1964-68 television series.
While that didn't materialize, he ended up directing three Kingsman movies based on a comic book by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons. The Kingsman movies had elements of U.N.C.L.E. and The Avengers television series.
With Argylle, Vaughn went to the spy well yet again. His timing appeared good.
The James Bond film franchise is on hiatus (again) and the eighth installment of Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible series got pushed back from this year to 2025.
Argylle had some rough reviews and it appears its box office prospects are so-so. In a separate post on X, ERC said the Feb. 2-4 weekend is down 20% "vs the same weekend in 2023."
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