Austin Powers' Box Office Opening Got Beat By A Kurt Russell Movie
"Austin Powers" is arguably one of the most beloved comedy movie franchises in history. Beginning with "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" in 1997, Mike Myers helped craft a James Bond spoof that came at just the right time, with "GoldenEye" reviving 007 to kick off Pierce Brosnan's tenure with the character. For as much as the movie is remembered, it actually didn't top the box office when it opened — the film lost out to an oft-forgotten Kurt Russell thriller.
Directed by Jonathan Mostow, "Breakdown" centers on a married couple Jeff (Kurt Russell) and Amy Taylor (Kathleen Quinlan) who run into some car trouble as they're driving across the country. A passing truck driver offers to help, and that's where things go wrong; Amy goes missing, leading Jeff on a chase to find her. In a 2021 interview with Forbes, Mostow recalled the film's opening weekend, as it was in a tight race with Jay Roach's "Austin Powers":
"Breakdown opened on a Friday, and there was one other movie opening against it. That movie was the first Austin Powers. I remember going around theaters in Los Angeles to make sure that it sounded okay and the projection wasn't off because I knew that people in the industry would see the film. I remember going into the auditoriums, I checked, and everything looked okay, and I was like, 'That Austin Powers movie is playing in the next theater. I'm going to go check that out. I hope it's not good because I don't want to lose to that.' So I went in and loved it. I was laughing so hard, but every time I laughed, I thought, 'Damn. This is going to beat us.'"
Both films were released on the same day in 1997, but "Breakdown" topped the charts with a $12.3 million haul, while "Austin Powers" had to settle for second place with $9.5 million. However, this is one of those situations where the opening weekend didn't tell the whole story.
Breakdown launched a career, but Austin Powers won in the end
Kurt Russell was coming off of John Carpenter's "Escape from L.A.," which was unfortunately not a hit. So it was good news when "Breakdown" topped the box office and was met with a fair amount of praise in its day. The film finished with more than $50 million domestically against a $36 million budget. That wasn't enough to make it a hit alone, but this was in the era of robust home video sales and cable TV. Paramount was going to make money on the movie eventually. The optics were good.
"Austin Powers," meanwhile, finished with nearly $54 million domestically and $68 million worldwide against an $18 million budget. More importantly, it spawned two even more successful sequels. 1999's "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" made a hugely impressive $312 million, while "Goldmember" made $296 million in 2002. Even with much larger budgets, these were massive hits for New Line. That's why Roach and Myers have continued to flirt with the idea of making "Austin Powers 4" over the years.
In the long run, "Austin Powers" got the last laugh. That said, both movies experienced success, relatively speaking. For Mostow, "Breakdown" was a launching pad for his career, as he got a deal at a major Hollywood studio mere days after the movie opened:
"Breakdown launched my career. I think it was on the Sunday morning when the chairman of a studio that had passed on the script, every other studio had passed on it, called my agent and said, 'How early tomorrow morning can you have your client in my office?' 7.30 am, Monday morning, I meet with this guy who set me up with a deal at that studio. That was very transformative, personally and professionally."
This is a fine example of two very different movies being able to succeed right alongside one another. It doesn't always have to be one or the other. Two things can coexist. So as Austin Powers might say, "Smashing, groovy, yay capitalism!"