That said, we’d be remiss not to mention some of the bigger ones. We had to destroy the myth because Mike Myers fucked us - I am a huge Mike Myers fan, so don’t get me wrong - but he kind of fucked us made it impossible to do the gags.”
In fact, Myers and company did such a good job taunting Ian Fleming’s franchise that they permanently pushed the series (and the genre) into a more realistic and mature direction.Īs Daniel Craig famously confessed to fan site MI6 Confidential in 2014, his grittier reboot saga - which began with 2006’s Casino Royale - “had to happen the way it did.” He continued: “I can’t see it happening any other way. Primarily, International Man of Mystery - as well as its more successful, elaborate, and ridiculous sequels: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) and Goldmember (2002) - was an affectionately astute and meticulously constructed send-up of the James Bond movies.
Consequently (and ironically), its irresistibly fun quips, characters, and look became a defining part of the late 1990s zeitgeist in America, England, and elsewhere. Upon its release in early May 1997, Mike Myers and Jay Roach’s Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery became a pop culture phenomenon.īorn from Myers’ faux rock band, Ming Tea, it saw the Wayne’s World star employing his typical knack for quirky personas and clever parody to poke fun at 1960s British psychedelia and campy spy cinema.
