Kingsman Director's Spy-Thriller Argylle Starts Slow At Box Office

Kingsman director Matthew Vaughn's newest movie, Argylle, opened in theaters this past weekend and it didn't put up the best numbers at the box office, nor did it get great reviews.

The spy-thriller from Apple and Universal that stars Henry Cavill, Sam Rockwell, Bryce Dallas Howard, Samuel L. Jackson, Catherine O'Hara, Dua Lipa, and Bryan Cranston earned $18 million in the US and $35 million globally for its first weekend, Deadline reported. The movie carried a production budget of $200 million, and that's before advertising expenses.

Argylle had a lowly CinemaScore rating of C+ and has a 36 on GameSpot sister site Metacritic. The movie has a 34% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Apple's previous theatrical releases, including Killers of the Flower Moon and Napoleon, also carried massive production budgets and didn't generate the biggest box office returns. Deadline reported that some are questioning how much longer Apple will continue to finance big-budget movies if they don't get a significant box office return.

Of course, Apple also stands to benefit commercially when Argylle eventually comes to the company's streaming platform, and it will also make money from rentals and purchases.

Argylle is based on the book Agent Argylle and tells the story of a spy novel author who gets caught up in a real-world action-adventure story like one from her books. Because so little is known about the books's actual author, some believed it was actually Taylor Swift who wrote the book. This is not true, though, according to Vaughn.