June 19, 2000

2:14 PM

Mike Meyers deserves a medalfor having the guts to admit that the character he created for a five-minute sketch wasn't going to carry a full-length movie. He gave up a 20-million-dollar payday and saved us all from another "SNL spin-off" movie.
posted by wendell (10 comments total)

I guess Austin Powers II taught him a lesson.
posted by brian at 2:24 PM on June 19, 2000

kudos to him. the last snl spinoff i saw (superstar) was terrible.
posted by patricking at 2:26 PM on June 19, 2000

Dang! And I woulda shown up to the theaters for that one too! Actually.. Script? Dieter doesn't need a script. Just call it Sprockets da FILM and have midgets dancing for two hours. What's the big deal? It's supposed to be a take off on cheesy faux avant garde european filmmaking. Man on the Moon meets Andy Warhol's Frankenstein. It's not SUPPOSED to make sense. It's not SUPPOSED to have a plot! He wrote a script? THAT's his problem! Pull out a camera and take pictures of people hammering their cars with stopsigns or wearing cuckoo clocks on their heads or petting his monkey. Animals urinating on one another. Dieter and Pee Wee Herman dancing to the Beatles Twist N Shout. Dieter trying to have an artistic conversation with Janeane Garofalo who just stares back at him with smoldering eyes that could kill while smoking a cigarette. Then show it with loud raucous music in the background. I'll buy a ticket. It'll be funny!

Twenty million dollars to be insane for two hours. What a butthead. Somebody tell Universal I'll do it for half that.
posted by ZachsMind at 2:33 PM on June 19, 2000

I'll do it for fifty bucks.
posted by dogwelder at 2:54 PM on June 19, 2000

Yeah, but he also wrote the script in the first place. I'm not giving him any SaintPoints.
posted by sylloge at 3:02 PM on June 19, 2000

I disagree. I read an interview with Myers a while back where he talked about the guy that inspired the Sprokets character. His stories about the guy had me rolling with laughter.

He could have pulled this off too. Dieter hangs with Jimmy Stewart. Dieter goes shopping. Dieter orders pizza. This is ripe for comedy.

Instead we'll have to suffer through not one, but two movies about Marlowe. [groan] HEY!!! Dieter and Marlowe switch bodies and have to join forces to stop an asteroid!!! Where's my agents number....... I gotta go....
posted by y6y6y6 at 5:15 PM on June 19, 2000

Re: the script he wrote.

I know not where I heard this, but I remember hearing/reading that Meyers wrote the original script, but it got changed and hacked so much, he pulled out.
posted by alan at 5:57 PM on June 19, 2000

How dare Mike Myers be the first 'SNL' star with any character. I'd have cashed in!!!! Does anyone but me think that 'So I Married an Axe Murder' was underated? That's some funny shit!
posted by Mr. skullhead at 6:55 PM on June 20, 2000

Re: Alan's comment.

I would find that accessment more believable. Hollywood is written by committee. You can't get a grocery list through its grist mill.

Re: So I Married an Axe Murderer.

Personally I hated it. Predictable. Dated. Flat characters. Horrible directing. No sense of rhythm or comic timing. I could go on. It has one saving grace though: Amanda Plummer. Ooh baby!
posted by ZachsMind at 8:24 AM on June 21, 2000

Zach, don't be so hard on the "Ax Murderer" (well, if that sentence doesn't label me as a bleeding heart liberal...). Any movie that highlights the music of the Bay City Rollers can't be all... well, cometothinkofit...
In the words of one SNL character that never became a cheesy movie: "Nevermind..."
posted by wendell at 9:02 AM on June 21, 2000