Why the“ Austin Powers” Sequel Was Much More Difficult to Make Than the First, According to Director Jay Roach
Why the“ Austin Powers” Sequel Was Much More Difficult to Make Than the First, According to Director Jay Roach
Angela AndaloroSat, June 13, 2026 at 3:58 PM UTC
0
Mike Myers as Austin Powers in 'Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me' (1999)Credit: K. Wright/New Line -
Mike Myers found a successful series in the Austin Powers film, which began with International Man of Mystery in 1997
The first sequel, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, was released on June 8, 1999
Director Jay Roach opened up about some of the challenges they faced in making the second film during an interview with The Independent in 2019
Sequels can present unique challenges.
After the popularity of Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, director Jay Roach was eager to work with Mike Myers on the sequel, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. The sequel premiered on June 8, 1999, just over two years after the first film, with the team anxious to see how audiences would react.
"The first movie never tested well," Roach, 68, told The Independentin 2019. "It never got above a 55, which is so low. There was skepticism. People had expectations of Mike Myers, because of SNL and Wayne's World — not everybody was going along with this idea of the bad teeth, hairy body and taking the piss out of Bond."
They faced a different challenge for the sequel, Roach explained. "By the time we tested the second one, it was the opposite problem. They were so quick to embrace it that we actually had trouble figuring out what they liked! It seemed they were laughing at everything."
— sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Advertisement
Jay Roach and Austin Powers in 2008Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty
Another unique challenge for that film was time travel, which Roach admitted was a headache. It was an issue that they employed Michael York's Basil to handle. The scene has the character break the fourth wall, encouraging audiences to "enjoy" the movie rather than fixate on whether the time travel was logical.
"When you're going back in time and making some adjustment in the history that could break the space-time continuum, you better have it airtight," Roach noted. "So instead of that, we got Michael York to explain it to the audience so they didn't have to worry about it anymore. That was from testing the idea over and over and thinking we'd better have a 'Get Out of Jail Free' card with this time-travel business."
In a 2024 interview with Entertainment Tonight, Myers, 63, was open when asked if there was a fourth Austin Powers film in the works.
"I can neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence of such a project," Myers said on the red carpet at the 49th AFI Lifetime Achievement Award event.
Asked whether he thinks the character "has more story to tell," Myers simply replied, "Absolutely."
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
