Henry Cavill’s Argylle Bombs on Opening Weekend: Is It Doomed?

Summary:

• The latest Matthew Vaughn movie starring Henry Cavill, Argylle only collected $34M globally on its opening weekend.
• Matthew Vaughn’s movies typically perform better on the Asian markets where Argylle hasn’t been released yet.
• On rough estimations, Argylle needs around $400M to break even, so for now, it’s a long way to go from turning profit.

Things are not looking great for Argylle at the moment. After the opening weekend, the movie still has hundreds of millions to earn for Apple to break even, but is it a complete flop? If Matthew Vaughn’s previous movies are anything to go by, then no.

Argylle’s Opening Weekend Was Terrible

For two days of essentially competition-free reign in the theaters, Henry Cavill’s latest movie turned up with nothing but disappointment for Apple, its owner. With just under $34.5M collected in total, Argylle saw a unique 50/50 split between the domestic and global box offices… Which doesn’t justify its measly performance.

There’s no exact information about Argylle’s production budget, but the movie was sold to Apple for $200M. This alone suggests that Vaughn’s movie needs at least $400M by standard estimations to break even, and the opening weekend didn’t contribute nearly enough to get closer to this number. Not all hope is lost yet, though.

Matthew Vaughn’s Movies Perform In Asia

While Argylle’s first weekend was undeniably weak to say the least, there’s a certain pattern in Matthew Vaughn’s movies that might yet apply to Henry Cavill’s latest outing, too. Vaughn’s films typically perform better internationally than domestically, and they’re the strongest on the Asian market — specifically, in South Korea.

In many countries, Argylle hasn’t even been released yet, and the largest Asian markets are among them. In the near future, Henry Cavill the Superspy will visit South Korea, China, Japan, and many other countries that can — and likely, will — contribute quite a hefty percentage to Argylle’s global box office revenue.

Similarly, it’s too early to cross Argylle out on the domestic and European markets as in the past few years, we’ve seen a few examples of movies picking up speed after their opening weekends. These factors indicate there’s hope still for Argylle, but they don’t guarantee anything and definitely don’t cancel out its anticlimactic start.