From superstar to unrecognisable cameos: tracing the downfall of Mike Myers
With mainstream tastes changing and evolving on a generational basis, actors best known for their comedy stylings arguably need to work harder than most to maintain their position on the industry ladder, with a couple of high-profile misfires causing Mike Myers to almost drop off the map completely.
Whereas many of Hollywood’s most famous comedians have dabbled in dramatic roles and extended their longevity and the breadth of roles available to them as a result – with Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, Melissa McCarthy, and Steve Carrel among them – Myers suffered two disastrous flops in a row and then opted to vanish almost completely.
For a time, though, he was one of comedy’s biggest and most popular stars. Thanks to the hugely popular Wayne’s World duology, cult classic So I Married an Axe Murderer, and the riotous Austin Powers trilogy, the Canadian was on top of the world. Voicing the title character in the Shrek franchise was the icing on the cake, with the four-film series estimated to have earned him upwards of $50million.
All good things must come to an end, though, and in a way, Myers brought it on himself. He only starred in The Cat in the Hat to avoid being sued when Universal sought legal action against the star for cancelling his own feature-length Saturday Night Live adaptation, Dieter’s Day, because he was dissatisfied with his work on the script.
One of the terms of the legal settlement was that Myers would play the lead role in a film hailing from planned Dieter’s Day director Bo Welch, which ended up being The Cat and the Hat. The end result was a Razzie win for ‘Worst Excuse for an Actual Movie’ from nine nominations in total, with the family-friendly romp being so awful Dr. Seuss’ widow immediately banned any of her late husband’s books from ever being adapted into live-action again.
Myers’ next live-action lead role came in The Love Guru, which was even worse. As the star, co-writer, and co-producer of the wretched comedy, which bombed at the box office, snagged Razzie wins for ‘Worst Picture’ and ‘Worst Actor’, and was rightly decried as one of the worst things to come out of Hollywood during the entire 21st century, he was almost entirely at fault for the dismal end product.
Since then, how many leading roles has Myers played in a live-action feature? The answer is none. How many live-action features has he appeared in, in general? The answer is just four, but he was buried under prosthetics and made to be as unrecognisable as possible in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, tedious sci-fi Terminal, and David O. Russell’s disastrous Amsterdam.
On the small screen, he once again went incognito as the fictitious Tommy Maitland to host a revival of The Gong Show for two seasons, going uncredited in the first. Further proof that he’d lost his touch came when Netflix unveiled The Pentaverate, which handed Myers almost complete creative freedom to craft a six-episode series where he served as creator, helped write every instalment, and played eight different characters.
It’s usually hard to quantify what counts as a bomb on Netflix, but The Pentaverate was definitely one of them. After premiering in May 2022, the streaming service’s own data revealed that it reached the top ten most-watched list in just one country – Myers’ native Canada – and stayed there for precisely one week.
In an interview with GQ, Myers admitted that he’s hardly desperate to return with a vengeance, telling the publication that “I do turn virtually everything down” that comes his way. If he does ever get that itch, though, then nostalgia is probably the easiest way to scratch it. After all, reprising his Wayne’s World role alongside Dana Carvey in a string of commercials gained plenty of buzz, and there’s always the long-rumoured fourth Austin Powers ready to be dusted off in order to capitalise on the demand for legacy sequels.
