By Matthew Vaughn’s costly spy-comedy “Argylle,” starring Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard and Sam Rockwell, looks to be a bomb as its debut this weekend landed with an absolute thud.
On the review front, the film stunk. It’s at 35% (5/10) with critics and 65% with audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, 36/100 with critics and 4.5/10 with audiences on Metacritic, and landed a woeful C+ CinemaScore in audience exit polls.
The title grossed $5.6 million on Friday for an estimated opening of $16.5 million this weekend. In overseas markets, its numbers are on par with the weekend opening there tipped to be $16.9 million.
A $33.4 million start would be fine for a cost-effective film, but “Argylle” reportedly sports a $200 million production budget. Were it made by a conventional studio, that kind of start would be seen as a box-office disaster.
As this is from Apple, one of the world’s richest tech companies, the verdict on its success – accurately or not – is seen differently even as the film boasts the same release window and marketing strategy as a conventional studio movie.
It marks the third traditional theatrical release from Apple recently following “Killers of The Flower Moon” and “Napoleon,” both of which also cost $200 million to produce. Those films are likely to fare better in the end as they ultimately grossed $158 million and $219 million worldwide.
Universal is distributing the movie in exchange for a distribution fee so its bottom line won’t be impacted.
It was the only new release this weekend aside from the opening episodes of the fourth season of faith-based series “The Chosen” which pulled in an estimated $3.3 million.
The results don’t bode well for Vaughn who has indicated in interviews he hopes to adapt the in-universe Argylle character plot into its own feature film followed by a direct sequel.
Source: THR
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