Over 20 years on, will comedy sequel Austin Powers 4 ever happen? “Yes” it will, says franchise star Mike Myers.
Update: Five months ago, Mike Myers insisted that the character of Austin Powers would return. A brief but significant update: he’s popped up at the premiere of Fokker-In-Law to confirm that he’s now actively writing the movie. His exact words: “I’m writing it right now”, which was clearly incorrect as he was talking to a reporter at the time. But let’s not be pedantic. More updates next year, then?
From June 2026
It’s now roughly 24 years since Mike Myers played Austin Powers, with Goldmember being the last outing for the 60s super spy to date (barring some the odd commercial or two).
Reports of sequel or spin-off plans have still surfaced from time to time, though, and here comes a new one – straight from Myers himself. Appearing on Trevor Noah’s World Cup Watch Party (thanks, Deadline) – which is about some sort of football contest going on in the USA – Myers was asked whether there would ever be an Austin Powers 4.
Myers said “yes.” And, er, that’s it. That’s the story. Myers didn’t say anything else on the subject. Thanks for coming folks!
Okay, here’s a bit more background. Looking back in time, it looks as though stories about Austin Powers 4 are something of an annual event. In 2020, series director Jay Roach said that the project is something “we talk about once a month,” hinting that there were at least ideas for a fourth film being batted about.
Then in 2022 came reports that a spin-off film focusing on Dr Evil (the Blofeld-esque arch villain also played by Myers) might be in the offing. Two years after that, in 2024, there was another story which suggested that Myers and Roach had been working on a sequel for years.
The whole franchise began in 1997 with Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery, a gaudy skewering of James Bond and other flower power-era spy shows. Powers was introduced as a man out of time – a secret agent frozen in the 60s and thawed out 30 years later, making him a fish out of water in a modern era of, I dunno, the Spice Girls and AOL.
Ironically, there’s now roughly as much time between now and the late 90s as there was between the 1960s and Austin Powers’ initial release date. Isn’t the franchise itself now an out-of-place artefact from another age?
Austin Powers 4 could easily address all that. And given we have real-world billionaires who behave like Bond villains, maybe the time is right for Dr Evil’s triumphant return.
We’re still holding out for So I Married An Axe Murderer Rebirth, though.