10 Recent Movie Flops EVERYONE Saw Coming
6. Argylle
On paper, Argylle actually should've had a ton of box office potential, what with its stupendously stacked cast and the pedigree of Kingsman director Matthew Vaughn.
That is, except, that Vaughn's filmmaking stock tumbled considerably after the mediocre reception to both Kingsman sequel The Golden Circle and prequel The King's Man, and the marketing for this spy caper - which touted the film as "from the twisted mind of Matthew Vaughn" - ended up leaving audiences more irritated than excited.
Universal and Apple certainly tried to make fetch happen, though, given that they spent many months spamming Argylle's trailer across every delivery system imaginable, to the point that folks legitimately started complaining about it.
All the same, the eye-watering $200 million budget handicapped this one right out of the gate, ensuring it needed to gross roughly $500 million to be a theatrical success.
And not even rumours of Taylor Swift's involvement with the script could do much to move the needle, as amid wildly mixed reviews Argylle reaped just $96.2 million.
Though the blow will be cushioned somewhat by the involvement of Apple, who are clearly focused more on streaming than theatrical exhibition, that's still a hellish result for an accessible genre film with one of the best casts of the entire year.
But it's also one that many saw coming months ahead of time.