Don’t let the cat out of the bag.

The tagline for Matthew Vaughn’s new thriller Argylle has been released, revealing that there’s much more to the spy movie from the director of The Kingsman movie series than was initially expected… and that there are more surprises still to come. Metafiction meets espionage meets over-the-top action, and that’s just to start. Ahead of Popverse's livestream of Vaughn's appearance at New York Comic Con this October, here’s everything you need to know about what might be 2024’s wildest action movie.

When is the Argylle release date?

Argylle is set to hit theaters February 2, 2024, before being streamed by Apple TV+ at an unspecified later date.

Who is in the Argylle cast?

To say that Argylle is going to be star-studded is an understatement. The movie will feature Cavill in the title role — director Matthew Vaughn has said of his star, “I needed someone who was born to play Bond — which Henry is — and then nick him before Bond did. He plays a larger-than-life action hero with a wink” — alongside (deep breath) Bryce Dallas Howard, Bryan Cranston, Sam Rockwell, Catherine O’Hara, John Cena, Samuel L. Jackson, Ariana DeBose, Rob Delaney, and Duo Lipa, with the latter making her acting debut in the movie. (She’s since appeared in Barbie, which was released first.)

Is there an Argylle poster?

This teaser poster was released in 2021, to accompany the movie’s announcement:

This teaser image was released in March 2022 by Apple, which officially owns the rights to the movie, featuring Dua Lipa and Henry Cavill together:

No official poster has been released at time of writing.

Is there an Argylle trailer?

Why, yes, there is:

Not quite what you expected, is it?

What is the Argylle plot?

Before the trailer’s debut, no plot details for the movie were released with the studio simply saying that the movie would adapt the yet-to-be-released debut novel by Elly Conway of the same name. Penguin Books, which will release the novel in the UK, has the following plot synopsis of the book:

“A luxury train speeding towards Moscow and a date with destiny. A CIA plane downed in the jungles of the Golden Triangle. A Nazi hoard entombed in the remote mountains of South-West Poland. A missing treasure, the eighth wonder of the world, lost for seven decades. One Russian magnate's dream of restoring a nation to greatness has set in motion a chain of events which will take the world to the brink of chaos. Only Frances Coffey, the CIA's most legendary spymaster, can prevent it. But to do so, she needs someone special. Enter Argylle, a troubled agent with a tarnished past who may just have the skills to take on one of the most powerful men in the world. If only he can save himself first…”

Of course, the trailer reveals that even that book is part of the movie, in an unexpected metafictional twist. Instead, the movie is actually about Elly Conway, a writer who has been accidentally writing real life spy events without knowing it, with Cavill, Cena, and others playing her fictional characters. Or… are they…?

Who is the author of the Argylle book?

Before the trailer's debut, there had been some controversy surrounding Elly Conway, understandably enough. (Or “Ellie Conway”; the spelling of the name has been reported in different ways since the movie’s announcement in 2021.) The release date of Argylle the novel keeps getting pushed back to seemingly tie in with the movie’s release, while multiple attempts to find out more about Conway have run aground in odd ways — including a Hollywood Reporter investigation that got silence when talking to publishers about the writer. Elly Conway has no significant internet presence as a writer, but the name does belong to a character from Australian soap opera Neighbors, curiously enough.

It's since been revealed that the real writer of Argylle (the movie) is actually Jason Fuchs, who's worked on Wonder Woman and the Ice Age movies. Of course, that still leaves the question of just who is ghost-writing the Elly Conway book that's still being prepped for real-world publication...

If all of this makes you want some Henry Cavill, there’s always The Witcher to revisit, even if he’s made his exit from the show…