In response to some corners of the web, along with attending the Golden Globes, courting an NFL star, re-recording a number of albums, and performing her three-plus-hour “Eras” present 60 instances and releasing it as a serious live performance movie, Taylor Swift discovered time to put in writing a spy novel that’s being known as the subsequent James Bond.
The thriller “Argylle” is being revealed Tuesday by Bantam Books/Penguin Random Home beneath the pseudonym “Elly Conway,” and it’s already been tailored right into a $200 million movie starring Dua Lipa, Henry Cavill, John Cena and Bryce Dallas Howard. Directed by Matthew Vaughn — whose earlier hits embody the “Kingsman” motion pictures and “X-Males: First Class” — it hits theaters February 2.
However the fact concerning the e-book’s authorship, and the movie’s supply materials, is as twisted, conspiracy-filled and globe-trotting as an enormous Hollywood franchise.
“One thing’s fishy,” an nameless Hollywood producer who has labored with Vaughn, instructed The Publish.
In July 2021, it was reported that the director was placing collectively his subsequent would-be blockbuster, assembling a star-studded solid for a film primarily based on the as-yet-to-be-published novel “Argylle” by Elly (generally written as Ellie) Conway. Vaughn known as the e-book “unimaginable” and “authentic,” based on early experiences.
The next month, Apple nabbed worldwide movie rights to the venture in an settlement estimated at $200 million. Nowhere within the all of the deal-making was it famous that Vaughn had optioned the “Argylle” novel itself — simply that it will be primarily based upon the e-book.
On the finish of 2022, Conway surfaced with a verified Instagram account, @ellyconway, that paints her as a bookish New York gal who someway didn’t know how one can use social media and couldn’t consider that Hollywood had come calling. An @ellyconway X account adopted in June 2023.
“How do you fluster an introvert? Publish her first novel, have Matthew Vaughn purchase the film rights, then inform her she has to start out utilizing social media for ‘visibility,’” she captioned a photograph of Westsider Uncommon & Used Books Inc., noting the Higher West Facet store was one among her favourite bookstores.
Such New Yorky posts aligned with Conway’s imprecise writer bio, which famous that she was born and raised upstate and had labored in a 24-hour diner.
Then, in September 2023, Apple launched the primary trailer for the movie, igniting Taylor Swift controversies.
Eagle-eyed Swiftie (is there another variety) @JessiSwiftTikTok famous on TikTok that Howard’s film character — a spy novelist named Elly Conway — carries round a cat in a backpack, simply as Swift has executed, amongst different factors of trivia. Different diehard Taylor followers jumped on board, discovering connections and Easters eggs.
Conway took to X to disclaim any connection to Swift.
Additional complicating issues, Vaughn went on a podcast final fall and defined that first e-book within the “Argylle” sequence is what’s being launched however that his film is definitely primarily based on an as-yet-to-be-published, and probably not but written, fourth e-book.
“I don’t wish to spoil all of it,” stated Vaughn. “However I form of like the thought of the e-book, but additionally the thought of displaying an writer writing the e-book, and it simply impressed a complete lot of meta film universe.”
Now, some are speculating that Elly Conway and her supposed novel is only a synergetic fiction created by Vaughn and/or numerous advertising and marketing departments.
The e-book is copyrighted by Marv Quinn Holding Restricted. The title of the manufacturing firm Vaughn has with fellow director Man Ritchie is Marv Studios.
The cat can also be a giveaway, some say. The nameless movie producer notes that it’s really Vaughn’s cat, and he can’t think about the director placing his pet in a film that was an adaptation.
“[That’s] awfully private for it to not be his story,” he stated.
When requested if he’s really Elly Conway, Vaughn supplied a rigorously worded response.
“I want I had Elly’s expertise to put in writing such a superb novel and I really feel very fortunate that I obtained to make the primary ‘Argylle’ film,” he instructed The Publish in an e-mail by way of his agent. (Penguin Random Home didn’t provide touch upon the matter.)
In the meantime, Studio System, an enormous leisure business database, lists “Cat Connor” as an alternate title for Conway. A New Zealand writer named Cat Connor has written a sequence of FBI thrillers with a protagonist named Ellie Conway for greater than a decade. However, Connor insists she has no connection to “Argylle” — and hints that she’s skeptical about Elly Conway.
“I haven’t been capable of confirm her existence and I’m fairly good at analysis,” she instructed The Publish over e-mail.
Whomever Conway is — or isn’t — a New York e-book editor says the thriller simply highlights the smoke-and-mirrors side of the publishing business.
“Lots of people could be shocked by what number of books are ghost-written. It’s not simply memoirs by Prince Harry and Britney Spears,” she instructed The Publish.
However, she added, “Somebody needed to write the e-book.”