Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood reports that Mike Myers has started writing Austin Powers 4 with Mike McCullers (Baby Mama). McCullers and Myers worked on the second and third installments in the franchise together.
Finke’s source tells her the project is very personal for Myers and a father-son relationship will be at the center of the story focusing on Dr. Evil (Myers) and his son Scott Evil (Seth Green). Apparently the film will be an homage to Myers’ father who died on November 22, 1991 of Alzheimer’s.
There is no greenlight for the film per se, but New Line is apparently excited about the project. It seems nothing changed at the studio after being folded into Warner Bros., they are still courting bad ideas.
An interesting fact is listed in Finke’s article that I had not heard before saying that Myers originally wrote in a character called The Love Guru in the first Austin Powers film. The character was axed from the franchise, but when The Love Guru went forward at Paramount the studio demanded New Line sign a pledge saying it had no claims to the character. Not sure if that is true or not, but a little factoid to tuck away one way or another.
