Why Nobody Cared About the Fake Author Mystery of ‘Argylle’

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Books | February 5, 2024 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Books | February 5, 2024 |

The first major blockbuster of 2024 landed in theatres with a gentle thud. Argylle, directed by Matthew Vaughn of Kingsman and Kick Ass fame, is the latest effort by Apple Studios to reverse engineer a future action franchise that’ll allow them to compete with the likes of Marvel (remember Ghosted? Nobody does.) Despite a starry cast that includes Henry Cavill, Sam Rockwell, and Dua Lipa, the film only earned a reported $18 million from 3,605 theatres in North America on its opening weekend. For a movie with a budget of over $200 million, those numbers are obviously not good.

The critics didn’t much like Argylle either. Our own Jason Adams called it ‘the director’s worst movie by leaps and kitty-cat bounds.’ The general consensus among reviewers was that the film, about a spy novelist whose works unexpectedly have their roots in a real worldwide conspiracy, was a pale imitation of similar stories like Romancing the Stone and the recent The Lost City. They saw it as dated, a wannabe Bond pastiche that lacked the charm of its inspirations and the giddy bad taste of Vaughn’s R-rated fare. Audiences didn’t seem interested in what Argylle had to offer, both on and off the big screen, but it’s in the latter where its marketing failures are most intriguing. Well, ‘most’.

The big hook of Argylle was supposed to be the mystery surrounding its authorship. When the film was first announced as the next project for Vaughn’s production company, it was said to be based on a yet-to-be-published novel by first-time writer Elly Conway. This isn’t uncommon in the entertainment world. Producers often option books while they’re in the advanced reader copy stage (see many of Reese Witherspoon’s recent projects or Brie Larson with Lessons in Chemistry.) What made Argylle unusual was that there didn’t seem to be any evidence of Elly Conway’s existence.

Vaughn talked about loving early drafts of the manuscript, which wouldn’t be released until early 2023, and how he really wanted Elly to come into the spotlight but she was just too shy to do so. Nobody bought it. The Hollywood Reporter had questions over Conway’s identity in 2022. There didn’t seem to be a publisher announcement of the book’s acquisition, which is expected, especially when a Hollywood producer puts down that much cash for its rights. Conway was never listed as the story’s source on IMDb either, which is what happens when you adapt something. Only screenwriter Jason Fuchs is listed as the writer. When the first trailer was released and showed that Bryce Dallas Howard’s character was a spy novelist named Elly Conway, it seemed clear that the mystery author was just a set-up, a publicity tool for the movie.

But Vaughn and company just doubled down. ‘Elly’ posted pics on Instagram of her New York home and cat. Vaughn kept referring to this author like they were a real person. Some fans even theorized that the Argylle project was the secret side-hustle of Taylor Swift, which made the entire furore far more interesting than it deserved to be.

But none of this worked. It didn’t make people eager to see the film or read the book or turn this drama into an online treasure hunt. Nobody rushed to unmask Elly Conway like they’d done with the anonymous writer of Primary Colors back in the ’90s. The internet is full of nosey weirdos who love a challenge, and none of them really seemed to care about Argylle, not even with the forced whiff of Swift-ness on the sidelines.

‘Elly Conway’ is the client of Eric Reed at WME, who was described by Deadline as a ‘literary packaging vet.’ Packaging deals are beloved by agencies but often less so by clients. It involves bundling together a project, including its creative team, and selling it as a deal. For example, an agent might have a writer on their books with a cool idea, so they’ll get them partnered up with a big director or producer, and maybe throw in a book deal, and send the packaged deal off to studios for a bidding war. Book packaging in publishing is its own thing, usually in celebrity books or YA titles. It involves hiring no-name authors to bring to life a story that’s already been established, and possibly prepped for film and TV. Companies like Alloy Entertainment specialize in this. It’s how you get stuff like The Vampire Diaries or Sweet Valley High. It’s also how you end up with a ton of underpaid authors getting no credit for their work and little to no share of royalties.

I wrote the lion’s share of this piece before the news broke of Conway’s identity. My theory was that Conway was a ghostwriter who was brought on board by Vaughn’s production company to turn Fuchs’ script into a novel and sell it as the ‘source material’ for their upcoming action comedy. And guess what, I was right! Conway is two writers: Terry Hayes and Tammy Cohen, both well-respected thriller and mystery authors who were asked by Vaughn to write a novel of Argylle that was the kind of book the movie version of Elly would have written. Essentially, it’s a novelization or tie-in book.

If Argylle was the work of a mysterious debut writer who captured the attention of Hollywood, the trades would have made a way bigger deal out of it. As it is, they’re almost hilariously uninterested in what is clearly just a boring business deal. What we have instead is a puppet show where even the key demographics could see the strings. You can’t have Matthew Vaughn calling the book ‘the most incredible spy franchise since Ian Fleming’ when he made the movie and there’s only one book out. Franchise? Oh, honey.

Nobody’s buying the book either, if Amazon sales metrics are anything to go by. Hype is hard to fake, especially when it comes to the literary. You need that organic enthusiasm from readers and viewers alike, and not even the half-baked hook of a secret author can overcome the key issue: if people don’t want it, they won’t buy it. I doubt the reveal of their identities will bolster sales either, except for hardcore Terry Hayes fans who love I Am Pilgrim (in fairness, I’ve been told that book is very good.) Maybe if you’d added some vampires, I would have cared. Or just given me a sequel to The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Sorry, ‘Elly.’