Is there something weird going on with the writer of Argylle, Henry Cavill’s new Apple spy thriller?
Who is Elly Conway, and why can't the internet find anything about them?
Aux News Henry Cavill
There’s an odd mystery brewing around Henry Cavill and Apple’s upcoming spy thriller Argylle, with multiple observers—including The Hollywood Reporter—noting that they can find no trace of the listed author of the book on which the film is based.
The author in question is reportedly Elly (or possibly Ellie) Conway, a first-time novelist who’s scored a deal to have her debut novel (about “a troubled agent with a tarnished past who may just have the skills to take on one of the most powerful men in the world”) turned into a $200 million movie by Apple. That’s especially noteworthy since the book isn’t even out yet, and won’t be until March 2023, just two months before the movie arrives on Apple TV+; instead, per director Matthew Vaughn, Conway sold the book on the strength of an “early draft manuscript.” Details about Conway themselves are incredibly minimal online: Nobody can find a trace of her, beyond a Penguin Books bio that simply lists her as “the author of the highly anticipated debut thriller Argylle,” and an empty Instagram page that uses the book’s cover as a logo. THR—as well as writer Josh Rosenberg, who wrote about this mystery back in March—both note that all involved, including her listed agent, have gotten very quiet, very quickly, when asked about Conway’s whereabouts or background.
It’s all especially notable because Apple is throwing a lot of money and talent at this project, with Cavill’s co-stars on the film including Sam Rockwell, Bryce Dallas Howard, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, John Cena, Dua Lipa, Ariana DeBose, and Samuel L. Jackson, with Kingsman’s Vaughn directing. There’s even murmurings of a potential franchise, although the current deal with the studio is only for a single film.
It’s admittedly possible that everything here is on the up-and-up—that Conway sold the book on the strength of a very strong draft, but simply wants to keep out of the public eye while they finish their already mega-successful book. Books do get optioned before they’re finished with some regularity, although it’s usually non-fiction, and usually with a release date not so close to the release date of the film. We have no idea what the actual answer here is—Weird metafictional twist? Celebrity author pseudonym? Boring old reality?—but, really: What’s a spy thriller for if not a little conspiracy-minded thinking?
31 Comments
I bet J.K. Rowling wrote it under this pseudonym.
J. K. Elle?Really, though, this was my immediate suspicion. I imagine it’s not true, but of things that might be true, it seems pretty high on the list.
That was my guess, but I don’t think the studio would be that tone deaf. Hiding it would cause huge, well, PR, but there is a such thing as bad buzz
But it’s probably just an in-movue character and they’re trying to be cute https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/q6aqer/comment/hgbeu8v/
Elly Conway B. Traven russian name beyally vasily wikipedia vasily vasily kandinsky Russian Traven Vasilly Ruslan born 1944 in Siberia granddaughter Irinushka Svetlana Ruslan treasure of the Sierra Madre picks up phone find someone in the Los Angeles phonebook called Irene Sarah Roscov kill them kill their whole family kill anyone they know kill their fucking dogwhat precisely did you think was going to happen someone was going to kill her? fucking idiots
Irinushka is a pretty name isn’t it think of the variants of it in english spanish something local to Southern California Los Angeles San Diego wealthy suburbs La Jolla Bel Air Santa Barbara the OC russian immigrants name their daughters something local call them by their russian name someone in the real estate business gold watch white shirt gold cufflinks expensive suit stocky five two five three drives a Merc S class daughter probably bullied him in to buying a EQS
Personally I think it was Hitler
it’s Soderbergh’s wife at it again!
That was my first thought. Not that it’s soderberg’s wife, but it’s someone writing under a pen name. I would be shocked if some unknown nobody got a 200 million dollar movie deal based on a manuscript.
I’m worried that he scalped Ewan McGregor and wearing it as a wig:
Yeah this is full on Phantom Menace Ewan.
He knows some Mama Bears.
It’s extremely hard to get your first book published, let alone get it optioned as a movie. Having all that happen with an early draft manuscript is even less likely, and nearly impossible if you don’t already have connections that give you access – it would be roughly on the same level as finding a winning lottery ticket on the sidewalk. If, in fact, this did happen as described, the publisher would be hard at work getting this young woman author a bunch of media attention to boost sales of this book, and the author would agree to take part in this because she presumably has more than one book in her and would want to cement her career as a novelist. It doesn’t add up.
It does if it’s an established author using a new pseudonym.
Excellent comment. You get it.
The connections are everything.If you’ve got them, you go from basically “lottery” ticket odds to like “natural 20″ odds, i.e. rolling a 20 on a d20.As for “the publisher would be…” stuff, that’s quite a pile of assumptions. Most likely the author doesn’t want to be identified because they’re either a celeb, child of a celeb, or someone involved with movie-making, like a producer, but who isn’t thought of as a writer.There have been plenty of authors who have shied away from the spotlight too, so acting like all of them want to be in it is pretty silly stuff.
God damn it, Stephen King, don’t you have enough money?
Someone knows how to drum up interest in her novel/movie debut.
My $10 says this whole thing is astroturfed.
How would that work? What would “astroturfing” even mean in this context? Normally it means a fake grass-roots movement. There’s no claim of a grass-roots movement here. Just an author no-one is familiar with. Most likely it’s a pseudonym, because it’s the most simple explanation, but that’s not “astroturfing”.
Simple. You write a movie script, then hire a ghostwriter to write the book version, then create a fake author with literally zero online presence.
That… doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.Literally why would anyone do that that? Let’s look at the common scenarios:1) Regular author has book adapted for screen – this is common, and there’s a real advantage in that you get the author’s fanbase excited for the movie, which can be millions or even tens of millions of people.2) First-time author gets book optioned then adapted for the screen before it’s even published – this is also surprisingly common, but there’s zero advantage to the movie studio in this scenario, because there’s no fanbase, and there’s no history of book adaptations being better than normal movie scripts (it’s a coinflip at best).So you’re proposing that someone faked 2? Why though? There’s no advantage. And what you’re proposing would require a ton of time and effort (and ghost-writing an entire book to comply with a movie script isn’t going to be free), and if you were going to do it, you’d put some effort into making the fake person have at least some online presence.It doesn’t even connect to the theme of the movie or something like it might with a horror or existential movie, because this is just another spy thriller with the only unique element being how terrible Cavill’s hair looks.What the purpose of doing this be?I mean, what might make sense is:3) An existing author wrote this under a pen-name, and doesn’t want to “blow the cover” on that pen-name because they intend to use it further. That would at least make some vague sense.or4) This script got made as the result of some fairly extreme nepotism, and the real name of the author would reveal this nepotism, because they’re the son of the Netflix CEO or some huge producer or whatever. However Hollywood seems really comfortable with nepotism, so I’d be really surprised by this.But like, otherwise why?
Option 4 all the way. I don’t know who’s Apple’s CEO right now, but it’s his/her kid/wife/husband/mistress/pet dog’s debut novel.
That does seem like by far the most likely option to me, too, thinking about it. It’d have to be embarrassing nepotism rather than “normal” nepotism, though, meaning mistress/unacknowledged lovechild/kid who isn’t even in college etc.
It’s clearly Kellyanne.
It’s a pseudonym for Kevin Spacey
It was me. I’m Ellie Conway. AMA
Where are my keys?
The last place you left them. They haven’t moved from there. See? Proves it.
My theory is that “Elly Conway” is the pseudonym of a current, or possibly former, undercover intelligence officer just like John Le Carre, whose real name was David Cornwell. Cornwell was an MI6 officer when he started writing books, which is why he used a pen name. Elly Conway could be a current CIA officer who would have to use a pen name. Or she could be a former CIA employee who is still not ready for the fame and public attention that would come with being a best selling author whose debut novel was made into a movie even before the book was published. Some people on here speculate that “Elly Conway” is the pseudonym of an already famous author because a first time author wouldn’t have the connections to be able to sell her book’s rights for $200 million. However a plausible explanation for this is that Conway knows other CIA officers who have written books. And those CIA officers turned writers had contacts in the publishing world. And those publishing contacts in turn had contacts in Hollywood.