Why Mike Myers needs to make another Austin Powers movie — now
It’s been 22 years since Mike Myers last installment of his immensely successful spy spoof series, Austin Powers in Goldmember, was released in 2002. In most recent interviews with the comedian, everyone inevitably asks him if or when there will be another Austin Powers movie. He sidesteps the question, There may or may not be something in the works, is usually the pat answer. It’s a bit disappointing to hear, if only coming from a fan of his work wanting to see more. One can understand Myers’ hesitation, perhaps, in providing a complete answer, a yes or a no. From the outside, it can look like this: six years after Goldmember, Myers releases The Love Guru, a critical and financial atom bomb, and cripples whatever goodwill he has at the cinema and derails any further films focused solely around his character creations.
So he does a few more Shrek films, makes quiet cameos in big movies, directs a documentary about Shep Gordon, and shows up in character as Tommy Maitland on the revival of The Gong Show. Myers spends more time, it seems, focused on his family; and that’s admirable, that’s actually beautiful. But even putting out a show on Netflix, The Pentaverate, wherein he plays EIGHT characters, doesn’t get the same cultural push or interest he once pulled. You couldn’t say the same about any of Myers’ contemporaries, Adam Sandler hasn’t stopped, Chris Rock keeps going with success.
But I’m half complaining, half empathetic. I want more. Selfishly, I want more Mike Myers. We’ve been bereft of comedy in film for too long. The 2000’s were bombarded by the frat esthetic of movies like Old School, Road Trip, Van Wilder, the American Pie series; those matured to the Hangover movies, and the 2010’s were dominated by Judd Apatow productions (seemingly every iteration of film comedies are about man-children learning how to become men, or Melissa McCarthy bumbling up the corporate ladder). Since then, at least in the States, what’s happened? The parody films seemingly all stopped in 2008/2009. The influence of ZAZ (Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker) has dwindled or been so rehashed it’s an unused genre unto itself now. Comedies are relegated to streaming, mid-budget pictures rarely given space at the cinema (with the exception of movies like The Lost City, the only comedies which make it into cinemas are couched within a genre: action, adventure, fantasy, familiar IP). The state of where and how comedies are distributed is another conversation. The state of humor, directly related to culture, is a part of the conversation, as well, although, what is there to parody, lampoon or spoof, when the real world is as absurd as it is?
We need Austin Powers. Now. For as much as we didn’t know we needed Myers’ take on 1960’s spy films in the late 1990’s, it seems rife for potential at this moment. But not for the reason you might be thinking. Of course, Myers could dip from the well of obscure 1960’s/1970’s spy films, but that would be too easy. Ideally, if there would’ve been more Austin Powers movies made in the 2010’s, Myers would’ve lampooned the 1980’s Cold War spy thrillers, then subsequently moved into other decades to parody, but that never happened. No, Austin Powers needs to get serious.
Austin Powers, the Self Serious Spy
If James Bond and his films in the 21st century did anything, they became serious again. No more gadgets. No more fun. Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy made ripples throughout film and took the ridiculous seriously. Brought fantasy down to Earth, grounded in a tangible reality the seemingly childish (a man in a cape, dressed as a bat flying around fighting crime) and influenced a generation of films and filmmakers. Sam Mendes seemingly became an ersatz Nolan in the early 2010’s, and brought that sensibility to 007.
Here’s where Myers can flourish — parody both Nolan and Daniel Craig’s Bond films. Because, for as much as Craig’s iteration of Bond started off serious, grounded in reality, they incrementally became less so, incorporating riffs on all previous film entries, embracing gadgets again, and Bond’s Joker to his Batman, Blofeld. Dr. Evil would surely be reinvented if he were imprisoned again, shackled and pulling the strings on a world dominating plot from inside prison. The only way he can see the outside world being a video feed from some goon’s mechanical eyeball — no wait, that was No Time To Die.
When those reporters ask Mike Myers if there’s going to be another Austin Powers movie, are they referring to the pleasure they got from the silliness of them all, or have they forgotten what those movies were actually about? They were about cultural clashes of sex, feminism, and masculinity. They were about fatherhood, and whatever The Spy Who Shagged Me was about… getting your mojo back? If Austin had to change with the times from the swingin’ sixties into the progressive nineties, who is he now in the 2020's? Self serious, like every character in a Christopher Nolan movie? Sexless, like every Marvel movie character? Has he gone with the times and evolved, or did he push back against the Me Too movement? Was Austin Powers publicly canceled? Is Dr. Evil no longer feared, but rather extolled? The idea of bringing Dr. Evil and Austin Powers back now is a great idea, but is surprisingly fraught with issues. It’s not as simple as just making another Austin Powers movie, is it?
Myers’ latest project, The Pentaverate, is one indicator of where he can find something to parody in contemporary life: conspiracy theorists, the absurdity of politics and the media. How can Myers parlay those ideas into the spy genre? Upturn the conventions. Give us a mirror to the absurd. Austin Powers is now the villain, and Dr. Evil the protagonist. It’s what everyone wants, anyway.
I wonder if, speculations aside, that’s why it’s taken so long for Myers to come up with another Austin Powers movie? Keeping abreast of the contemporary cultural climate; remaining relevant and not nostalgic; easier when one is at the forefront of it, less so when you’re two or three generations removed from what’s popular in contemporary pop culture. If I had to start, I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Would Charli XCX be Powers’ “Bond girl”? Maybe the rise of the younger generation’s perceived sexual revolution could be boosted with picking and choosing the best out of the 1960’s ideals? Where else can a culture ruminate on these ideas of generations’ spanning mores on sex, politics, gender, and free love? Is it too much for an Austin Powers movie to grapple with those topics? No, I don’t think so, if done equally between what would inevitably be a movie split between Dr. Evil’s plot/plan and Austin’s story of coming to terms with aging, his dwindling mojo, and the handing of the baton to a new generation of groovy chicks and boss babes. Just set some of the action in the Austrian Alps at a chalet.
