Matthew Vaughn’s new spy romp For Argy enjoys bringing together two fictional levels: 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 together until the audience It no longer knows what is real and which way is up? There’s also the fact that the film is supposedly inspired by a novel by a real Author named Elly Conway. If you’ve watched the film and are still confused about a few points, you’re not alone.
We’re here to help you sort out a few things, including the future of the Argylle franchise, whether it has connections to Vaughn’s Kingsman films, and what the implications of the post-credits scene are.
Does Argylle have a post-credits scene?
Yes! In the mid-credits slot, before the full credits roll, we get what looks like a teaser for a sequel… sort of. It’s complicated.
A title card informs us that the scene takes place 20 years earlier than the film we just saw. It is shot in black and white. A young, dark-haired man enters a country inn called “The King’s Man”, a clear reference to Vaughn’s Kingsman film series. He goes to the bartender and asks for a “cosmopolitan with a certain something”. The barman scoffs and says his place isn’t a cocktail bar or a nightclub.
The young man replies: “Hold the Cointreau. And the cranberry juice. And the vodka. Just the twist.” It’s a silly line, perhaps a mockery of James Bond’s famously demanding “shaken, not stirred” directive – but it’s also code. The bartender hands the young man a fancy box with a pistol and asks him his name. He reveals that he is Aubrey Argylle – the character from Elly Conway’s books, played by Henry Cavill in the film.
“Argylle: Book One – The Movie – Coming Soon,” the text on the screen reads.
So is Argylle getting a sequel?
I told you this would be complicated.
Because Elly Conway – Bryce Dallas Howard’s character in For Argy – is an author who writes spy novels about Aubrey Argylle, this scene could Just be an inside joke: a trailer for a movie that exists in For Argyis the fictional universe adapted from the fictional Elly book.
But! Elly Conway is also a real author (maybe – more on that later) who wrote a real book called For Argy (that you can buy), which supposedly inspired the film. So this could be a trailer for one real Film adaptation of this book. A direct adaptation and not that For Argy We have a film that is a metafictional version of this, using some of the characters and turning the author herself into a character.
It turns out that’s the plan, according to Vaughn – 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 said after a screening of the film in London. “The plan – touch wood, touch wood – would be Book One, which would be written and sold. The book didn’t write itself, you know. […] It’s a really good book.”
Are there any additional franchise plans? Yes! Vaughn plans to follow him in typical mischievous fashion Argylle: Book One with a third film that would actually be the case For Argy 2. Are you following this?
“So [after] If you book one, we would definitely do it For Argy 2 “The movie that continues with the characters and the meta-weirdness,” Vaughn said. Presumably that means this third film would return to the world of the fictional Elly Conway and Sam Rockwell’s “real” spy Aidan. “We have some really fun ideas for that. And if we can do both, who knows what will come next?”
Will Henry Cavill play Argylle in the sequel?
The young actor’s use in the post-credits scene could raise the question of whether the role of Aubrey Argylle might be recast Argylle: Book One – The Movie. The book delves into Argylle’s origins as a spy, and at the beginning the character is described as being in his early 20s. (Cavill is 40.)
Cavill hopes he will continue to play the role in the next film. “I hope so,” he said in an interview. “A rewrite of Argylle would be a pretty profound statement against me! In an ideal world, this would not be a voluntary departure on my part.”
But maybe that’s what Cavill is talking about For Argy 2and not Argylle: Book One. Or maybe he mixed up the two possible follow-up films, and who could blame him?
Who wrote the Argylle book? Was it Taylor Swift? And is the film really based on the book?
For Argy was originally announced as an adaptation of a novel by debut author Elly Conway, but questions were initially raised about its authorship The Hollywood Reporter in 2022 When the publication realized it could not verify its existence. Suspicions grew even greater when it emerged that Elly would be a character in the film. There was even a widespread conspiracy theory that the real author of the books was pop star Taylor Swift, due to a number of coincidences, including that the breed of Elly’s cat in the film was the same as Swift’s. (And no, in case you were wondering, Taylor Swift isn’t included For Argyeven though Dua Lipa is.)
Vaughn has categorically rejected the Swift connection in interviews and claims that there is a real Elly Conway. However, there is no “adaptation by” credit for the film, the only author credit goes 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?
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. The result of the film was actually watching it 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 a kind of meta universe. And then I was really excited about doing something different and taking what I call fictional fantasy spies, realistic real spies, and then having a writer in the middle where the worlds just collide. And then a new illusion appears.”
Vaughn points out that he is no stranger to developing adaptations in this unusual, synchronous way. “I did the same thing Kick ass. Literally the same thing. Mark Millar and I wrote… Well, technically he wrote the comic and we did [Vaughn and co-screenwriter Jane Goldman] wrote the script… For me that’s actually quite 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 a reference to Vaughn’s three Kingsman films? Or does it imply that? For Argy exists in the same universe as the fictional secret service of smartly dressed, very violent spies escaping from 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 have to say that Argylle wears very well tailored suits. That’s all I’ll say for now.”
In fact, Vaughn has previously hinted that he might create a link For Argy with Kingsman and a third, unnamed franchise in an overarching cinematic universe of spies. In October 2023 he said this Happy, sad, confused Podcast: “There is a universe and what we want to do with Marv [Vaughn’s production company] Just as Marvel is for superheroes, we want to be for spies too. So we have Kingsman on the right, Argylle on the left and then we also have an idea for something in the middle. Then there are these kinds of competing franchises in a galaxy that maybe one day will meet.”
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