Matthew Vaughn has been a busy guy. It feels like it was just yesterday that Kingsman: The Golden Circle was released to the world; now, the Covid-delayed but much anticipated The King's Man is set to hit theaters on December 22, featuring the likes of Ralph Fiennes, Rhys Ifans, and Beach Rats' Harris Dickinson. Yet in June, another Vaughn project seemingly manifested outta nowhere: Argylle, another spy caper, based on a yet-to-be-released book and described by the director as an ode to 1980s thrillers like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon. Now, Vaughn has revealed more details about the film.
In a group interview that Collider was part of for The Kings Man, Vaughn was asked how the book first came across his desk. "I think that one of the benefits about lockdown is I got to read again," he said. "I actually had normal time. I rediscovered what books were like. A friend of mine sent me Argylle, and every now and then I read a book and I have a 'I have to make this into a movie.'"
He was once desperate to adapt the book I Am Pilgrim into a film, he says, but couldn't clear the rights with the text already published. "So I said to myself from then on," he continues, "I need to read things before they'e published, otherwise I'm not getting them, right? Because the studios just buy everything." Further:
"I just couldn't stop laughing reading it because it had captured a side to me about those 80s movies. It's sort of a mixture of Die Hard, Romancing the Stone, Lethal Weapon. It’s just fun. If people think Kingsman was fun… this is on a different level where it's just going… I was sitting in lockdown, seeing how miserable we all were, and I read it and it made me smile. So, I just thought, you know what, let's make a movie during lockdown because we put it all together really quickly. I was going stir crazy, like all of us at home, and I thought, well look, if I can make a movie and it's, you know, I thought it was a contained film. It's gone and exploded, and I couldn't help it. The set pieces got bigger and bigger and bigger, and I had zero discipline trying to keep it small. So, it's now huge. It's now actually the most expensive movie I've made. It's more expensive than The King’s Man, which is ridiculous."
Asked whether he wanted to make a James Bond film, given his established spy flick credentials, the director said: "More important, I don't think the Bond people would touch me with a stick. They don't like me. You know, to be blunt. I love Bond. It's obviously a huge influence on me. Argylle... just wait until you see Argylle."
If he ever did make a Bond movie, though, it seems like Henry Cavill - who stars in Argylle - would be his unequivocal first choice. "Henry Cavill, that man was born to play Bond. When you see how he is in this film, I was just like, wow, this guy is everything you'd imagine Bond to have been, or be."
The King's Man hits theaters on December 22. There is currently no release date for Argylle, which is also set to star Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O'Hara, John Cena, and Samuel L. Jackson, along with Cavill. Stay tuned to Collider for more from our interview with Vaughn.