“We didn't do Citizen Kane, but damn… Some of the opinions were vitriolic!”
At the beginning of the year, Matthew Vaughn seemed confident aboutArgyle, his spy comedy with a large cast (Henry Cavill, Dua Lipa, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell…). He explained thus even before its release that he hoped to make a franchise out of it, following the example of his successful saga, Kingsman.
With less than $100 million in worldwide revenue for double the budget, the director's ambitions today seem compromised, but what worries him most is not so much these poor box office scores as the reviews negative received by Argylewhich stagnates at 33% positive opinions on Rotten Tomatoes.
Argylle 2: “If the first film works, there will be strange crossovers”
“We did test screenings which went very well, he tells Empire. The preview was also an excellent evening, a very fun moment as if we were going back to the good times of Snatch with all this excitement around the film. I started to tell myself that it would go well. It's a funny, feel-good film… or at least that's what I thought. We didn't do Citizen Kanebut damn… I saw some reviews and I said to myself: 'Wait, did I hurt people?' Some opinions were vitriolic! I'm not saying that my film is perfect, eh, but I never perceived it as offensive. These strong reactions took me by surprise.
You know, I even hung out outside the cinemas to hear reactions, wondering what had gone wrong. That bothered me quite a bit. Really, I'm still scratching my head to understand, because there haven't been just a handful of negative reviews, you can't ignore that.”
The only hope forArgyle finds its audience now? The VOD. Explaining that the film works well on Apple TV+he adds, still to the British magazine:
“We're doing well on streaming. People like the movie, and nothing would make me happier than to do one again. I get messages saying: 'Wow! These criticisms were frankly murderous!'
The more people see it, the more Argyle will have a chance of having a sequel. I would love to shoot one, we had everything planned, you know.”
In France, Argyle will not be available immediately for streaming, our media timeline imposing between 15 to 17 months of waiting between a theatrical release and a broadcast on Netflix, Prime Video or other. At home, it didn't bring out the crowds either: the film has attracted 463,885 people to theaters since the end of January vs. 700,000 for his Kick-Ass. The three opuses of Kingsman had recorded between 920,000 (First mission in 2021) and 1.7 million entries (The Golden Circle, in 2017). The director's biggest success remains with us X-Men the Beginningseen by 2.1 million French people in 2011.
Argylle: Matthew Vaughn dynamites spy cinema [critique]