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| Austin Powers |
Love him or hate him, Mike Myers is returning to the
Austin Powers franchise...
It was inevitable.
Mike Myers had a small part in Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious
Basterds," and he's reprised his role as Shrek for both a sequel and a
TV special in the last few years, but as far as live-action movies where
he's the star, the last one was the disastrous "The Love Guru" in 2008,
and the response to that nearly drove him out of the business.
Myers is a very particular talent, a guy who likes to workshop a
character for a while before he actually makes a movie. He has not made
that many films, all things considered, and a few times over the course
of his career, he has actually pulled the plug on things that probably
could have gotten made because he didn't feel they were ready. That
happened most famously with "Sprockets," the feature-film version of one
of his SNL characters. I liked the script he co-wrote with Mike
McCullers, but Myers bowed out just before it was supposed to start,
killing the film in the process.
His most successful bigscreen character, of course, is the hyper-horny
snaggletoothed secret agent Austin Powers, and there has been much talk
about the possibility of a fourth film in that series over the last few
years. For a while, there was talk of a Dr. Evil spin-off film, but I
think all of those weird characters need to share the same universe.
Taking one of them into a solo film just seems odd. Whatever the case,
we haven't' seen the character since 2002's "Goldmember."
That's about to change, as HitFix can now confirm that Mike
Myers just closed his deal to return to the role. Yep. "Austin Powers
4" is coming, officially.
No word yet on who will be directing. I would hope Jay Roach returns as
well, since I think a lot of the kick of the films is the '60s pop
aesthetic, and Roach has been a big part of that since day one. There's
also no word yet on a proposed storyline, but I will certainly start
digging to see what I can come up with.
Right now, all that's sure is that someone's going to get shagged, and
for the first time in a decade, Austin Powers fans are going to have new
material to get excited about. We'll update you as more details become
available.
Thanks to
HitFix for the scoop.
