argylle: release date, cast, storyline, trailer release, and everything you need to know.

The most recent spy film directed by Matthew Vaughn is Argylle. The film, which was first announced in 2021, is supposedly based on an unpublished novel by Elly Conway about the world’s greatest spy who gets sucked into a global adventure.

In a historic agreement, Apple paid $200 million for the exclusive rights to the movie (source: Deadline). As the first installment of a trilogy, Argylle is being marketed as the beginning of a brand-new series on Apple TV Plus. Viewers of the film will be familiar with what’s coming up for the enigmatic agent Aubrey Argylle in the sequel.

Here is the most recent information available about Argylle, including the cast, the trailer, the plot of the Argylle books, and the reviews.

Argylle release date: Is Argylle out yet?

Argylle debuted on Friday, February 2, and is still showing in theaters.

Argylle cast

For Argylle, Matthew Vaughn assembled an all-star cast. Among the most well-known actors are Sam Rockwell as Aiden, a cat-allergic spy who shields Elly from her very real enemies, and Henry Cavill as the title character, Aubrey Argylle. Bryce Dallas Howard is the best-selling author of the Argylle novels.

Argylle’s ensemble also consists of:

Director Ritter, played by Bryan Cranston
Ruth played by Catherine O’Hara, Elly’s mother
Wyatt, played by John Cena
As Alfie, Samuel L. Jackson
DeBose Ariana as Keira
Saba Al-Badr, played by Sofia Boutella
As LaGrange, Dua Lipa

Except for a brief appearance in the Barbie movie, Grammy winner Dua Lipa’s main acting debut is Argylle. The singer-songwriter also contributed some original songs to the movie’s title track and score.

The Argylle website also mentions that Chip, the actual cat of supermodel Claudia Vaughn (née Schiffer), plays Elly’s cat, Alfie.

Prior to the January 24 premiere of Argylle, supporting actor John Cena made an appearance on Good Morning Britain. When asked about the trailer, he responded: “It’s really got the world talking and the great thing about Argylle is that you show an interesting trailer like this and you realise that the film has action and there is so much more to the film left than what you saw on the trailer.”

Argylle plot — what’s Argylle about? 

The complete plot summary for Argylle is as follows: “Argylle is a razor-witted, reality-bending, globe-encircling spy thriller that comes from the warped imagination of Matthew Vaughn (Kingsman franchise, Kick-Ass).

Elly Conway, the reclusive author of several best-selling spy thrillers, is portrayed by Bryce Dallas Howard (Jurassic World franchise) as someone whose idea of joy is spending a night at home with her computer and cat, Alfie. However, tranquil evenings at home are rendered obsolete when the themes of Elly’s fictional books—which revolve around secret agent Argylle and his quest to expose a global spy syndicate—begin to resemble the clandestine activities of a real-life spy organization.

The distinction between Elly’s real world and her fictitious one is starting to blur as she speeds across the globe with Alfie in her backpack and Aiden (Oscar winner Sam Rockwell), a spy who is allergic to cats.”

The film is about “a best-selling spy novelist who turns out to be a world-class spy suffering from amnesia,” according to an Observer article. In a group interview with Collider, Vaughn stated that the tone of the movie is meant to be lighthearted and “sort of a mixture of Die Hard, Romancing the Stone, [and] Lethal Weapon.”

The reclusive espionage author Elly Conway is nearly done with her fifth book about the series’ title character, Aubrey Argylle, but she is having writer’s block because of criticism from her mother, Ruth. While traveling the train to see Ruth and her father, Barry, Elly is rescued from an ambush by a real spy, Aidan Wilde. He informs her that she is the target of the Division, a cunning organization, because her books appear to foretell their destiny. With the hope that Elly’s next book will explain how to halt the Division, Aidan journeys to England with her.

The two travel to London in pursuit of a “Masterkey”[b] that could lead to the Division mentioned in Elly’s books being made public. Elly phones her parents for assistance since she believes Aidan also wants to kill her. When they get there, Aidan tells Elly and him that her parents are Division operatives, so they have to fight them off before leaving. When Aidan and former CIA deputy director Alfie Solomon escape to France, they discover that Argylle is not wholly made up. Elly is actually agent Rachel Kylle (so-called because “Argylle” appears to have been derived from “R. Kylle”), who was taken prisoner and brainwashed by the Division five years prior, where she was led to believe that Director Ritter (Barry) and Dr. Margaret Vogeler (Ruth) were her parents.

After retrieving the Masterkey from the Arabian Peninsula, Aidan and Rachel are surrounded by the Division and brought back to their base. After revealing that Rachel was, in fact, a double agent and one of the Division’s most dependable assets, Ritter offers to question Rachel, who then shoots Aidan. She finds Alfie for them as well, but later confesses that she betrayed the Division by sending him the Masterkey. After learning that he had been shot in non-lethal places, Aidan finds Rachel again, and the two of them battle their way through the institution. Ritter stops Alfie from receiving the Masterkey, but after Rachel’s cat scratches out his eyes, he is shot and dies.

In order to use the satellite link to deliver the Masterkey, Aidan and Rachel manage to flee to the outside of the Division facility, which turns out to be a cargo ship. Ruth employs a mental trigger code to make her “daughter” attack Aidan until Keira, a former CIA agent, kills Ruth. Keira had previously been Rachel and Aidan’s sister-in-arms; she was believed killed during a mission with Rachel; these events had also been depicted in Elly’s novels, as had Keira as a fictionalized version of herself. When the Masterkey communication is eventually received by Alfie, Aidan blows up the Division’s oil tanker headquarters.

Resuming her author character, Rachel publishes her last Argylle work. Much to her surprise and dismay, at a reading, the actual Argylle makes himself known.

Is there an Argylle trailer?

The Argylle teaser opens with Agent Argylle’s experiences. Then, it shows author Elly Conway going about her business across from Aiden on a train. Aiden quickly steps in to save her as she’s attacked by some very real foes. What comes next appears to be an incredibly exciting journey filled with well-known characters.

Argylle reviews: What do the critics think of the movie?

So far, Argylle has not been well accepted. Argylle received the lowest critic rating of all Vaughn films at Rotten Tomatoes, with 35% as of the time of our most recent update.

In our review of Argylle for What To Watch, we noted that while the film was engaging and had a strong cast, its overuse of twists tired the audience well before the credits rolled and the setpieces suffered from subpar visual effects.

‘Argylle is hindered by weird pacing and a bloated 139-minute duration,’ commented Nick Levine of NME. ‘There’s lots more to love here, especially Howard’s beautifully layered portrayal and Bryan Cranston’s comic villain Ritter.

“Argylle is a high-concept elevator pitch stuck between floors, a piece of colorful would-be franchise content that Vaughn is tiresomely trying to fold into the extended universe of his other work,” commented Peter Bradshaw for The Guardian. Bradshaw gave it a one-star rating. 

Is Argylle based on a book?

It’s not easy to respond to that question. The quick response is, sort of.

In October 2023, Matthew Vaughn revealed during an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that the Argylle movie is based on the fourth unpublished book in the series written by Elly Conway, an enigmatic author with hardly any online presence.

“I read the book, they bought the book’s manuscript, and we met with [Argylle writer Jason] Fuchs, and we just came up with this,” he said in an interview with Josh Horowitz. “Book 4 was the one that would work for it,” he went on to say. Why not us? Mr. Lucas was astute enough to launch Star Wars with Episode 4!”

The first Argylle book came out less than a month before the movie came out, in January 2024. The author has only recently become active on social media, around the time that people started making serious attempts to figure out who Elly Conway was. 

Argylle: Storyline

 Written by Jason Fuchs, the narrative centers on famed espionage author Elly Conway (portrayed by Bryce Dallas Howard). Her made-up storylines end up being useful resources for a legitimate super-spy organization, in which Henry Cavill plays Argylle.

Argylle: Production Team

Cloudy Productions, Vaughn’s MARV, and important partners Adam Bohling, David Reid, and Jason Fuchs are producing the film together. Adam Fishbach, Zygi Kamasa, Carlos Peres, and Claudia Vaughn are among the executive producers. Original songs for the movie will also be contributed by Grammy-winning musician Dua Lipa.

 Argylle: Inspiration

 For an estimated price of about $200 million, Apple acquired the rights to “Argylle” in August 2021 with the intention of turning it into a franchise. The movie is based on Elly Conway’s upcoming book of the same name, which she wrote as a debut author.

Matthew Vaughn, the author of the “Kingsman” espionage thriller series, revealed his delight at learning of the contract by saying, “After reading this early draft text, I thought it was the most amazing and unique spy franchise since Ian Fleming’s books of the ‘