A new poster has been released for director Matthew Vaughn‘s newest film Argylle. The film sees Vaughn stepping back into the spy genre after finding success in it with his Kingsman franchise. However, unlike that franchise, Argylle will have a PG-13 rating. This marks a big change from the director’s usual proclivity towards violence-filled stories. In fact, Vaughn has not directed a PG-13 film since 2011, when he made X-Men: First Class. This is likely because the film is taking a more comedic approach to the spy genre with the aim to do something different. As the official Apple synopsis describes Argylle as being about “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.”
Argylle‘s poster showcases Vaughn‘s all-star cast with Henry Cavill (The Witcher), Sam Rockwell (Moon), actresses and director Bryce Dallas Howard (Jurassic World), 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. And of course, we can’t forget the real star of the film, the cat Alfie. Alfie is played by Chip, the real-life cat of supermodel Claudia Vaughn (née Schiffer).
What Does Director Matthew Vaughn Say About ‘Argylle’?
Vaughn reflected to Collider on his journey to bring his vision of Argylle to the big screen. The director shared how he came to love spy films, stating that it started with a love of superheroes. And while he enjoyed working on X-Men it never felt like it was his project, “I will always say X-Men is Bryan Singer‘s franchise.” That’s why he went to create a James Bond-style franchise with Kingsman. “With Kingsman and now with Argylle I just like the idea. Maybe it’s because I grew up in the 80s, at the height of the Cold War and espionage and [James] Bond. I just loved all those movies, I loved Flint, I even loved Austin Powers when it came out.”
According to Vaughn, Argylle came to him during lockdown — at a time when he needed to escape the reality of the real world. He and his daughters would watch movies together and Vaughn realized that, “we had pure escapism. You know, we’re all in lockdown, the world was a scary place, and for two hours of Romancing the Stone, we’ve all gone on this journey. I went on this journey.” From there, he decided that the film would be a fun, date-night experience that would suck audiences in, just like Romancing the Stone. “I thought I wanted to do a film about escapism, which would be a great date movie at the same time, and do a film that my girls would enjoy, because, you know, they didn’t really like Kingsman. They wanted me to do a softer film, I mean, it’ll still have some moments in it. So I’m proud of that and I’m also proud of trying to reinvent some of the genre, the spy tropes that I’ve contributed towards, I thought, let’s shine a light on some of them for how ridiculous they can be and put Sam Rockwell up as the mirror.”
Check out Argylle‘s new poster below:
via Collider