The lifeless North American film market finally welcomed the full release of the action blockbuster "Argylle" (Argylle), jointly produced by Apple and Universal Pictures, last Friday. Although it firmly ranks first in the box office list, its reputation and box office results are not satisfactory.

Apple continues to spend money to make money

"Argyle" is directed by Matthew Vaughn, the British director who became famous with the "Kingsman" series, and is produced by his own Marv Studios. The investment amount is as high as 200 million U.S. dollars, and the cast Including Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard, John Cena, Sam Rockwell, Dua Lipa, Ariana DeBose, Bryan Cranston, Samuel ·Jackson and others can definitely be called an all-star lineup.

"Argyle: The Secret Agent" will be released in mainland China on February 23

However, due to such poor reputation, the film only earned US$18 million at the box office after being released in 3,605 theaters in North America for three days over the weekend. Compared with its high investment, it has been identified as the first Hollywood blockbuster to fail at the box office in 2024. I am afraid it will also become the biggest failure for Apple, a wealthy company, to enter the film production industry in the past few years.

At the same time, this is also the third theatrical movie released by Apple in recent months, following Martin Scorsese's "Killers of the Flower Moon" and Ridley Scott's "Napoleon." The production costs of the three movies are more than 200 million U.S. dollars. The global box office of "Killers of the Flower Moon" and "Napoleon" are 150 million U.S. dollars and 220 million U.S. dollars respectively. Coupled with the considerable publicity and distribution expenses, according to popular Hollywood sayings , a movie with an investment of US$200 million needs a global box office of US$500 million to break even. Therefore, "Killers of the Flower Moon" and "Napoleon" plus this "Argyle" are actually losing money and making money.

Of course, as a new face in the film market, Apple is willing to spend a lot of money to promote the production of these film projects. On the one hand, it is to attract big-name directors and actors to cooperate with it; on the other hand, these works will later be launched on Apple’s streaming media platform. , and can also introduce traffic to it. However, this method of buying horses with thousands of dollars is difficult to maintain for a long time. Especially compared to "Killers of the Flower Moon" and "Napoleon", the global box office of "Argyle" this time will probably take another step back. It is said that Apple originally planned to develop "Argyle" into a trilogy series, but now it seems that it will be difficult to advance.

On the other hand, for a director like Matthew Vaughn who has directed successful commercial films such as the "Kingsman" series, and for such a star-studded cast, such box office results are quite surprising.

"Argyle: The Secret Agent" stills

Who is the original author of "Argyll"?

"Argyll" follows the route of a British spy film, and the online and offline publicity campaign before its release was quite effective. Especially when the film was only a few weeks away from release, rumors circulated on social networks that the original author of "Argyle" was none other than the famous American pop singer Taylor Swift.

Back in 2021, when the producers initially announced the project, they revealed: "The film is adapted from author Elly Conway's upcoming spy novel "Argyll," about the world's greatest spy. The story of Argyle being involved in a globe-trotting adventure... The novel is planned to be published by Penguin Random House in 2022. The screenwriter responsible for adapting the script is Jason Fox, the screenwriter who has written "Wonder Woman" and "Ice Age 4" Fuchs).”

The author listed on the cover of "Argyll" is Elly Conway

Soon, sharp-eyed people discovered that there was no introduction to the female writer named Yeli Conway on the Internet, and in the promotional copy given by the producer, the spelling of "Yeli" There are even inconsistencies in the law.

In September 2022, the authoritative media "Hollywood Reporter" published an article revealing that Yeli Conway may be a pure fabrication, and even her so-called public relations agent and brokerage company cannot be contacted at all. However, a few days later, the makers released the first trailer of the film Argyle. It turns out that the heroine played by Bryce Dallas Howard this time is a novelist named Yelly Conway, and Argyle is the name of the heroic protagonist in her novel.

However, this cannot answer the question of the existence of Yeli Conway. Then, for some reason, the idea that Yelly Conway was Taylor Swift’s pseudonym suddenly appeared on the Internet. Their evidence includes that the protagonist of the movie has a Scottish fold cat, and Swift also has two pet cats of the same style; and that the word "Argyll", as long as it is missing one L, is the English word "argyle". Plaid (argyle) means, and Swift usually likes to wear diamond-patterned clothing.

On January 9, 2024, the novel "Argyll" was officially published. The author's signature is still Yeli Conway, but does she exist? Could it be that she is actually Matthew Vaughan himself, or the screenwriter Jack Sen. Fox's pen name has been a mystery for two years. Although the director and other producers have always denied the "conspiracy theory" that the author is Taylor Swift, and stated that "Yeley Conway is indeed a person and is indeed the author of this novel," they just refused to Telling the exact life story of this person clearly has the purpose of raising doubts and creating a topic.

It wasn't until last Friday that the mystery was finally revealed. The British "Daily Telegraph" published that day published a joint interview with writers Terry Hayes and Tammy Cohen. The two said that they jointly wrote the novel "Argyll", The so-called Yeli Conway is the pen name of the two people.

Hayes, 72, is a famous screenwriter in Hollywood, having written movie scripts such as "Mad Max 2", "Mad Max 3", "Dangerous Man", "Vertical Limit" and "From Hell". In 2013, he transformed and published his first novel "Pilgrim", and was soon spotted by Matthew Vaughn, who bought the copyright. This time, Matthew Vaughn approached him and asked him to help tailor the supporting novel of "Argyle" for the film. However, because of lack of time and energy, he asked his colleague Tammy Cohen to help.

According to the two, Universal Pictures and Apple were involved from the beginning, and the contract stipulated that they must remain anonymous and keep the status of the project strictly confidential until the film is released. "It's understandable that they have such a request, because this is not just an independent novel, or even an independent movie: they hope this can become a commercial blockbuster series, and "Argyll" is just A beginning," the pair added. However, judging from the current box office, subsequent supporting novels and movies may be in vain.

Dragged down by the poor box office of "Argyle", the total North American box office in the first weekend of February was approximately US$63 million, an 18% decrease from the same period in 2023. In the five weekends so far in 2024, the total weekend box office in North America has always hovered at a low of less than 100 million U.S. dollars, and the total box office in three weekends has even been less than 70 million U.S. dollars. At the beginning of 2023, the total box office in the first five weekends was all higher than 70 million U.S. dollars, and the total box office in two weekends exceeded 100 million U.S. dollars. The huge contrast has made the North American theater industry worried.