austin powers 4 Tagged Articles at Cinematical

According to Variety, Mike Myers' next film, The Love Guru, just got a lot hotter! That's right, gentlemen -- Verne Troyer has joined the cast! Oh, and Jessica Alba too. I guess she's alright. I told you a little bit about the comedy a few months back, but now we've got a confirmed plot synopsis and the cast is starting to take shape. Alba has the female lead in the movie and Myers will re-unite with everyone's favorite alcoholic little person Verne "Mini-Me" Troyer for the first time since the Austin Powers movies. Romany Malco has also joined the cast, you might know him from his excellent work on Showtime's Weeds or his hilarious performance in The 40 Year-Old Virgin. Marco Schnabel, assistant director on Goldmember and the Meet the Parents movies, will direct Guru, which was scripted by Myers and Graham Gordy.

The setup for the movie doesn't sound too hilarious, but I have friends who saw Myers do the Guru character at improv shows in New York, and they loved it. In the film, Mike Myers will play Pitka, "an American who was left at the gates of an ashram in India as a child and raised by gurus." Pitka moves back to the United States, and "attempts to settle a rift between a hockey player (Malco) and his wife, who begins scoring with the star player of a rival team ... Pitka's job is to check that illicit romance and reunite the couple so the star player can lead his team to the championship." Alba will play the owner of the hockey team, and Troyer will play the team's coach. I can't ascertain from the synopsis if Alba will be a love interest for Pitka or not, but I imagine that's the case. Something tells me Mr. Myers has a big say in casting his female co-stars -- Tia Carrere, Elizabeth Hurley, Heather Graham, Cameron Diaz, Beyonce, and now Alba. The guy's living in Maxim World! The Love Guru is due out June 20th.

Out of the ashes of development hell, Mike Myers will rise as Walter Mitty. Oh, how I wish the ashes had buried this project too deep to ever see the light of day. There are films that shouldn't be touched, and then there's Danny Kaye, who made Walter Mitty come alive in 1947. At first, the project was going to star Jim Carrey -- a decent Kaye look-alike, I'll give him that. And surprisingly, the remake had high-profile directors attached that included Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard. When all of that fell apart, Owen Wilson (ugh, no!) was to star with Mark Waters directing the project. That would've been interesting, to say the least, since he's the guy behind The House of Yes and Mean Girls. But finally, all that was scratched and now Myers is going to be the man.

A whole new script of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is being made for the actor, "specifically tailored" to him. At the very least, I hope that they will make him a distant relative, grandson or something, instead of taking over the same role, but I doubt that will be the case. Jay Kogen, a writer for shows like The Simpsons and Frasier is currently writing the script. I like Myers a lot, but I just really don't like the idea of this. However, after a bit of stretch out of the spotlight, the actor is just piling on the work, so maybe he'll be too busy and the flick will stay in that sweet development hell. For one thing, he's now talking with New Line and Jay Roach about making another Austin Powers. No writer is on the case or anything, but Myers wants a sequel that comes from Dr. Evil's point of view. I imagine that spin is the only hope for the film to be fresh, since comedy sequels just never seem to live up to the feature egg that created them. Then again, I'll sit through another for some more Alan Parsons jokes.

Watching the Saturday Night Live in the 90's special Sunday night, I was reminded of what a genius Mike Myers is. I still remember the flutter in my stomach on Saturday nights when I'd see that Wayne's World logo to open the show. But where has he been? Not counting the Shrek series, Myers hasn't been on the big screen since 2003's hairball The Cat in the Hat. I'm excited about next year's The Love Guru, which we told you about here and here. The film is said to be about "a Canadian raised in India who becomes a guru and helps the Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup." When I lived in New York, I always heard about surprise improv shows Myers did around town as the Guru -- apparently the character kills. I'm less excited about Myers playing The Who's drummer in See Me Feel Me: Keith Moon Naked For Your Pleasure, but that might just be because I was so unimpressed by his last dramatic outing, 54. Still, it's good just to hear he's working, and I think we can all agree it was about time to move on from Austin Powers.

But wait. He's not moving on at all! Myers recently told Sci Fi Wire that he definitely plans on making another Powers film after The Love Guru, and that it will likely bring the focus to Austin's nemesis. Says Myers, "I have figured out that the story will be taken from the point of Doctor Evil. It will be powered from Doctor Evil's point of view. That will be the first of a trilogy...I'm just joking!...I haven't figured it all out. Who knows?" Ah, but are you joking, Mike? How long can you drag this out? Look, I love the first two Austin Powers movies, and I consider Doctor Evil one of the all-time great comedy villains, as I wrote about here. But Goldmember showed the formula is wearing real thin. Haven't we had enough? With all those classic characters at Myers' disposal, why is he heading right back to the well? Don't you think maybe it's time to take Doctor Evil's advice and just...zip it?

What good would a new Bond flick do if it wasn't followed by an Austin Powers sequel? Mike Myers recently told EW that he would certainly be down with giving the shag-a-licious character another go-round. "There is hope! We're all circling and talking to each other. I miss doing the characters." If it happens, this would be the fourth installment in a series that has already earned $675 million worldwide, placing New Line Cinema in that "it would be really stupid of you not to make another one" category.

Personally, I stopped laughing after the first one, so my opinion on whether or not they should go ahead with the project really shouldn't matter. I mean, there are only so many times I can hear the words "shag" and "baby" used as a punch-line before I want to reach through the screen and literally yank them out of his vocabulary. I don't know, I guess I'll just have to remain in the minority on this one.