Matthew Vaughn’s new spy romp Argylle delights in collapsing two fictional layers: the world of spy writer Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) and the world inhabited by her creation, the James Bond-like Aubrey Argylle (Henry Cavill), merge until the audience no longer knows what is real and which way is up. There’s also the fact that the film was reportedly inspired by a novel written by Real author named Elly Conway. If you’ve finished watching the movie and are still confused on a few points, you’re not alone.
We’re here to help you figure out a few things, including what future the Argylle franchise has, whether it has any connection to Vaughn’s Kingsman films, and the implications of the post-credits scene.
Does Argylle have a post-credits scene?
Yes! In the middle of the credits, before the full credits begin, we get what seems like a teaser for a sequel… sort of. It’s complicated.
A title card tells us that the scene takes place twenty years earlier than the film we just saw. It is shot in black and white. A young, dark-haired man enters a country pub called The King’s Man, a reference to Vaughn’s series of Kingsman films. He goes to the bartender and asks for a ‘cosmopolitan with a twist’. The bartender mockingly says that his establishment is not a cocktail bar or nightclub.
The young man replies: “Hold the Cointreau. And the cranberry juice. And the vodka. Just the twist.” It’s a silly phrase, perhaps mocking James Bond’s famously fastidious “shaken, not stirred” order – but it’s also code. The bartender hands the young man a nice box containing a gun and asks for the young man’s name. He reveals himself to be Aubrey Argylle – the character from Elly Conway’s books, played by Henry Cavill in the film.
“Argylle: Book One – The Movie – Coming Soon,” reads the text on the screen.
Will Argylle get a sequel?
I told you this would be complicated.
Because Elly Conway – Bryce Dallas Howard’s character in Argylle – is an author who writes spy fiction about Aubrey Argylle, this scene could be just be a joke: a trailer for a movie that exists Argylle‘s fictional universe, adapted from Elly’s fictional book.
But! Elly Conway is also a real author (maybe – more on that later) who wrote a real book called Argylle (that you can buy) which supposedly inspired the film. So this could be a trailer for one Real film adaptation of that book. A direct adjustment, instead of the Argylle film we have, a metafictional take on it that uses some characters and turns the author himself into a character.
Photo: Peter Mountain/Universal Pictures/Apple Original Movies
According to Vaughn, this appears to be the plan – if he gets the green light from Apple and Universal to make more Argylle films. He doesn’t have the green light yet.
“That would be nice, but that’s up to the audience, not us,” Vaughn told Polygon after a screening of the film in London. “The plan – touch wood, touch wood – would be Book One, which was written and sold. The book didn’t write itself, you know. (…) It is a very good book.”
Are there franchise plans going further? Yes! Vaughn, in typical mischievous style, plans to follow suit Argylle: Book One with a third film that would actually be the case Argylle 2. Are you following this?
“So (after) Book One, we would definitely do that Argylle 2 the movie, which continues with the characters and the meta-craziness,” Vaughn said. Presumably, this means that this third film would return to the world of the fictional Elly Conway and Sam Rockwell’s “real” spy, Aidan. “We have very nice ideas for that. And if we get both of those done, who knows what’s next?’
Will Henry Cavill play Argylle in the sequel?
The use of the young actor in the post-credits scene could raise questions about whether Aubrey Argylle’s role will be recast for the possible Argylle: Book One – The Movie. The book is about Argylle’s origins as a spy, and in the beginning the character is described as being in his early twenties. (Cavill is 40.)
Cavill, for one, hopes he’ll still play the role in the next film. “I hope so,” he told Polygon in an interview. ‘An Argylle reshuffle would be a pretty profound statement against me! In an ideal world, that would not be a voluntary departure on my part.”
But maybe Cavill is talking about it Argylle 2and not Argylle: Book One. Or maybe he got the two possible sequels mixed up, and who can blame him?
Who wrote the Argylle book? Was it Taylor Swift? And is the film really based on the book?
Argylle was initially announced as an adaptation of a novel by debut writer Elly Conway, but questions about its authorship were first raised by The Hollywood Reporter in 2022 when the publication discovered it could not verify her existence. Suspicions were further aroused when it emerged that Elly would be a character in the film. There was even a popular conspiracy theory that the real author of the books was pop star Taylor Swift, due to a number of coincidences, including the breed of Elly’s cat in the film being the same as Swift’s. (And no, in case you’re wondering, Taylor Swift isn’t there Argyllealthough Dua Lipa is.)
Vaughn has categorically denied the Swift connection in interviews, claiming that a real Elly Conway exists. However, the film has no “adapted from” credit, with the sole writing credit going to screenwriter Jason Fuchs. It seems possible that the book was written after or alongside the film, partly as a marketing ploy and partly as material for future possible sequels. Is Elly Conway a pseudonym for Fuchs, Vaughn himself or another ghostwriter?
Image: Universal Pictures/Apple Original Movies
When asked by Polygon which came first, the book or the movie, Vaughn stuck to his story, but in a way that is open to interpretation.
“They were born at the same time,” he said. “Literally, really. What the film actually came from was watching Romanticize the stone with my daughters. And they said, ‘Well, you should please make a movie like this for us.’ Then I got a script. And then I got a manuscript. And then the whole thing just merged into this kind of very meta universe. And then I got really excited to do something different, and what I call fictional fantasy spies, realistic real spies, and then have an author in the middle where the worlds just collide. And then a new illusion arises.”
Vaughn points out that he is no stranger to developing adaptations in this unusual, synchronous manner. “I did the same thing with Super awesome. Literally the same. Mark Millar and I were writing… Well, technically he was writing the comic, and we (Vaughn and co-screenwriter Jane Goldman) were writing the script… To me, this is actually very normal. But other people say: What are you doing?”
Is Argylle set in the same universe as the Kingsman films?
Is the name of the pub in the post-credits scene – The King’s Man – just an Easter egg nodding to Vaughn’s three Kingsman films? Or does that imply that Argylle exists in the same universe as the fictional secret service of sharply dressed, highly violent spies running out of a Savile Row tailor shop?
“Well, they both exist in my head, so that’s the universe!” Vaughn joked to Polygon, before hinting that there might be another link. “I will say that Argylle wears very well-cut suits. That’s all I can say about it for now.”
Vaughn has even previously suggested he might make a connection Argylle with Kingsman and a third, untitled franchise in an overarching cinematic universe of spies. In October 2023, he told the Happy sad confused podcast: “There is a universe, and what we’re trying to do with Marv (Vaughn’s production company) is, as Marvel is to superheroes, we want to be to spies. So we have Kingsman on the right, Argylle on the left, and then we also have an idea for something in the middle. Then you have these kind of competing franchises in a galaxy that might meet one day.”