‘What would happen if a wizard went to J.K. Rowling and said wizards are real?’: A new $200 million spy thriller packs a curious sales pitch

Having finally reminded everyone it doesn’t just exist but is releasing in a matter of months, Matthew Vaughn’s Argylle is on the cusp of launching headfirst into its marketing campaign, with the Kingsman creator’s latest dive into the world of espionage landing in theaters in February of next year.

Boasting a star-studded cast and an ingenious high concept, the story finds Bryce Dallas Howard’s author being caught up in a global conspiracy after her latest novel seems to lay out a beat-for-beat operation that’s captured the attention of the world’s major spy agencies, with the narrative set to flit between the real world and the fictional universe created on the page.

Invoking the name of J.K. Rowling might not be the wisest move given the Harry Potter author’s increasingly polarizing presence in the pop culture pantheon, but Vaughn has nonetheless done it again during an appearance at New York Comic-Con (per The Hollywood Reporter), explaining his self-aware blockbuster’s place in the world.

“We wanted to do something very meta. I just loved the idea of what would happen if a wizard went to J.K. Rowling in book three and said, ‘You know what? Wizards are real. Hogwarts is real. I’m real. I’m going to show you what it’s really like,’ and going on an adventure. We thought we’ll do that with spies. So Elly Conway, I think, in real life will become a J.K. Rowling of spy movies, of spy novels.”

You get the gist of Argylle from what Vaughn is saying, but as we’ve seen repeatedly, maybe continuing to name-drop somebody that’s destined to generate some form of reaction whenever they appear in the headlines isn’t the smartest movie to guarantee that elusive crossover appeal.