Despite the world of James Bond being on indefinite hiatus, the spy genre is still just as popular as ever. Or, at least, studios want to convince us it is. In an almost anti-Barbenheimer situation, two major new spy releases opened on the very same weekend at the beginning of February 2024. However, unlike how the aforementioned summer 2023 sensation helped out both titles, there’s clearly only one winner in this skirmish of the secret agents.
The loser, unfortunately, is Argylle. Off the back of largely dire reviews, director Matthew Vaughn’s latest attempt to recapture the glory of Kingsman looks set to be this year’s first big box office bomb, after it earned a mere $6.5 million on its first day in theaters. For former almost-007 Henry Cavill, who’s looking for a new franchise to call his own after Superman went south and he went AWOL from The Witcher, it’s an unfortunate blow. Even if he does have the Highlander remake and his Warhammer 40K show still to come.
So the Man of Steel star is probably looking with longing at the success its spy release twin is finding over on streaming. Especially as it’s managed to even knock back a show that may just star a future Batman, if the internet has anything to say about it.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith is the spy spectacular Argylle wishes it could be as Reacher is jacked back into second place
If you saw Argylle and found it failed to scratch the itch for a high-quality spy outing (or you wisely avoided it altogether), make sure to check out Mr. & Mrs. Smith on Prime Video. Although no one was asking for a redo of the beloved 2005 movie starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Donald Glover brings some of his Atlanta magic to this TV series — co-starring PEN15‘s Maya Erskine — which is way better than it has any right to be.
Prime users seem to agree as the show has instantly shot straight to the top of the charts, as per Flix Patrol. It’s even managed to ram Reacher back into second place. That’s no mean feet as the series based on the smash-hit Lee Child books has been owning the number one slot for the past couple of months, averaging about 1.4 billion viewing minutes per week. That just goes to show the combined power a familiar IP and super-positive word of mouth can have.
Reacher‘s Alan Ritchson is committed to a third season of the show, but he’s risen up of late to become the DC fandom’s ultimate choice to play James Gunn’s Batman in The Brave and the Bold movie — so who knows how many more seasons we’ll get. As for Mr. & Mrs. Smith, a second run seems all but confirmed if it manages to keep up this level of streaming superiority. And Argylle? Well, sorry, Henry, but you might want to flatten down that high-top and focus on Highlander for a while instead.
