Argylle: Director Matthew Vaughn Reveals His Unique Filmmaking Process
The filmmaker talks about how he makes endings easier.
Matthew Vaughn has been one of the most interesting blockbuster directors in Hollywood since he broke out with 2004's Layer Cake. The filmmaker said that while his new movie Argylle is about a writer desperately seeking a perfect ending to her story, that isn't something that he regularly has to struggle with. In fact, he typically writes the ending early, and has to circle back around to flesh out the middle of a project. In an interview with ComicBook.com, he revealed that the only time he has really struggled with an ending, it was on one of his earliest projects.
Little is known about Argylle yet -- they're keeping much of the story, as well as the identity of its writer, under wraps -- but that hasn't calmed the buzz around the film, which has a star-studded cast and Vaughn's unique sensibilities behind it.
"Weirdly I always write the first act, and I write the third act, first," Vaughn told ComicBook.com. "Because...setup, payoff. I find second acts hard....If you have the third act right, the first act sort of writes itself. Sadly, with movies, people remember the endings more than anything else. So there's this rule, that I can't remember the name of it, but the last 10, 15 minutes of a movie is what creates the buzz or not. The only movie we did a big reshoot of the ending was Lock, Stock [and Two Smoking Barrels], right at the beginning [of my career]."
Here's (what amounts to) the official synopsis for the film:
The greater the spy, the bigger the lie.
From the twisted mind of Matthew Vaughn (Kingsman franchise, Kick-Ass) comes Argylle, a razor-witted, reality-bending, globe-encircling spy thriller.
Bryce Dallas Howard (Jurassic World franchise) is Elly Conway, the reclusive author of a series of best-selling espionage novels, whose idea of bliss is a night at home with her computer and her cat, Alfie. But when the plots of Elly's fictional books-which center on secret agent Argylle and his mission to unravel a global spy syndicate-begin to mirror the covert actions of a real-life spy organization, quiet evenings at home become a thing of the past.
Accompanied by Aiden (Oscar winner Sam Rockwell), a cat-allergic spy, Elly (carrying Alfie in her backpack) races across the world to stay one step ahead of the killers as the line between Elly's fictional world and her real one begins to blur.
The top-flight ensemble cast features Henry Cavill (The Witcher), John Cena (Fast X), Oscar winner Ariana DeBose (West Side Story), Grammy winning pop superstar Dua Lipa (Barbie), Emmy winner and Oscar® nominee Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), Emmy winner and comedy icon Catherine O'Hara (Schitt's Creek), Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: The Secret Service), and the legendary Samuel L. Jackson. Alfie is played by Chip, the real-life cat of supermodel Claudia Vaughn (née Schiffer).
Argylle is directed and produced by Matthew Vaughn, from a screenplay by Jason Fuchs (Wonder Woman). The film is produced by Matthew Vaughn, Adam Bohling (Kingsman franchise), Jason Fuchs, and David Reid (Kingsman franchise). The executive producers are Adam Fishbach, Zygi Kamasa, Carlos Peres and Claudia Vaughn.
Universal Pictures will release Argylle exclusively in theaters on February 2nd, 2024 before it becomes available to stream worldwide exclusively on Apple TV+.