For months now, Taylor Swift and Apple spy comedy Argylle have been talked about in the same sentence thanks to some wild theories from Swifties regarding the singer writing the novel the movie is based on. While promoting the movie, its director, Matthew Vaughn, quickly cleared up that Swift is not involved in Argylle. While speaking to CinemaBlend’s ReelBlend podcast, the filmmaker got real about why he found it so important to quickly deny the connection, and it involved name dropping record executive Scooter Braun.
On an upcoming episode of the ReelBlend podcast, dropping this Friday, Matthew Vaughn discussed Argylle going viral thanks to Swifties. In his words:
Be careful what you wish for sometimes. The enthusiasm that Taylor Swift fans have for her I don’t want to take advantage of. And I definitely don’t want to alienate them because if they turn around and go… imagine if Taylor goes ‘You shouldn’t watch this film.’? You’d be like ‘Oh my god.’
As history has revealed over and over, you don’t want to be on the bad side of Swifties, and Matthew Vaughn was very much aware of this when his movie became the center of theories about one of her many upcoming projects. As Vaughn continued:
It was a lesson for me. It was the first time I had my daughter come to me and say ‘You never told me Taylor Swift wrote the book?’ And I’m like ‘What are you talking about?’ She does ‘Taylor Swift wrote the book, when am I gonna meet her?’ And I’m like ‘She didn’t write the book, you’re not gonna meet her.’ And I was like ‘Come on, explain this to me.’
Back in October, Argylle was placed on the radar of Taylor Swift’s fans when the movie’s connections with the singer started piling up. One major element of the whole thing is the fact that the author behind the spy story, Elly Conway, is a first-time novelist, and yet Apple TV+ reportedly bought the rights to the film based on her work for a staggering $200 million, per The Hollywood Reporter. Additionally, the movie features an adorable Scottish fold cat (which Swift famously has herself), and the actor playing Conway in the movie, Bryce Dallas Howard, holds similar features to Swift’s alter ego in the All Too Well short film. Vaughn then said this:
Taylor Swift’s an amazing lady who has been taken care of, look what happened with Scooter Braun. So I don’t want to be on that list.
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Matthew Vaughn quickly denied those Taylor Swift rumors out of respect for the powerhouse singer and not wanting to exploit her popularity for the sake of promoting his film. Of course, Argylle is now more popular and known organically because these rumors started in the first place, but rather than running with them, the director was very much aware of not wanting to be targeted by Swifties.
After the music producer sold the masters for Swift’s first six albums, she shared plans to re-record them and has since done so in a big way, with two more albums left to re-release left. Late last year, more big artists like Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato parted ways with Braun.
While the movie isn’t among upcoming Taylor Swift projects, our CinemaBlend Argylle review recommends the new release. You can check out the movie in theaters this Friday, February 2.
