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!”
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