Apple Lands Matthew Vaughn’s Star-Studded Spy Film ‘Argylle’ In Massive Package Deal

Apple is near completion on another seismic film package streamer deal. Apple Original Films is closing worldwide rights on Argylle, the next film to be directed by Matthew Vaughn and produced by his MARV banner. First unveiled with cast recently, the package bore an ask of $200 million and Deadline hears that this deal will close right around that mark. It’s a deal for one picture but the hope will be to launch a franchise.

Argylle comes with a killer cast led by Henry Cavill, Sam Rockwell, Bryce Dallas Howard, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, John Cena and Samuel L. Jackson. Making her screen-starring debut will be Grammy winner Dua Lipa, who will also provide music for the title track and score. Apple already had a relationship with Vaughn, last year acquiring the biopic Tetris: The Movie, with Taron Edgerton playing the video game’s impresario Henk Rogers.

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The parties confirmed the Argylle deal Wednesday but weren’t talking money. “I’m thrilled to team with Apple and bring the most compelling spy thriller I’ve ever read to the only streaming service that can create a franchise of this scale and quality for global audiences to experience,” Vaughn said.

The film, based on the soon-to-be-launched spy novel of the same name from author Ellie Conway, follows the world’s greatest spy as he is caught up in a globe-trotting adventure. Conway’s debut thriller is scheduled to be published in a major launch in 2022 by Transworld Publishers Ltd, a division of Penguin Random House.

Jason Fuchs penned the script and is producing along with Vaughn’s regular collaborators Adam Bohling and David Reid. Zygi Kamasa, Carlos Peres, Claudia Vaughn and Adam Fishbach will serve as executive producers.

While the financial commitment feels high, it has become the accepted price of doing business on these ready-to-go star packages, particularly one that could become a global spy series like 007. Apple has landed several of these big-ticket film packages including the Will Smith-Antoine Fuqua thriller Emancipation, currently in production, and the Martin Scorsese-directed Killers of the Flower Moon with Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro starring in the Eric Roth-scripted adaptation of the David Grann book. Apple also landed the Ridley Scott-directed Napoleon pic Kitbag starring Joaquin Phoenix as the French leader and Jodie Comer playing his wife. Shooting on that is set to begin later this year.

Vaughn is repped by WME and Ziffren Brittenham. Fuchs is repped by WME, Emily Gerson Saines at Brookside Artist Management, and Simon Faber.

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