Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
It's only been five years since Mike Myers' last live-action film, but Hollywood's former comedy golden boy will have emerged blinking into the sunlight last week brutally aware that a new era has dawned, after his latest feature bombed at the US box office.
The Love Guru, a comedy about an American Hindu self-help specialist who returns from India to the land of his birth, opened in fourth spot with just $14 million (BD5.31 million). By way of contrast, Myers' last outing as Austin Powers, 2002's Goldmember, took $73 million on its first weekend.
The Love Guru, which has suffered from poor reviews, was beaten to the No 1 spot by another comedy, Get Smart, starring Steve Carell as secret agent Maxwell Smart. The film, which is an update of Mel Brooks's 60s spy satire, took $39.2 million on debut. Ironically, it follows a very similar premise to Myers's successful Austin Powers series.
In second spot, the Jack Black animated comedy Kung Fu Panda hung on well with another $21.7 million in its third weekend. It leapfrogged Louis Leterrier's reimagined superhero tale The Incredible Hulk, which dropped 61 per cent in its second weekend to take another $21.6 million. The new Hulk is still running slightly behind its much derided Ang Lee-directed predecessor, but looks likely to overtake it in the next few weeks. The new Marvel studio's other summer superhero hit, Iron Man, passed the $300 million milestone at the weekend.
The top five was rounded out by the M Night Shyamalan chiller The Happening, which took another $10 million in fifth. There were no other new films in the top 10.
As a result Myers must be wishing he had played it safe and turned his talents to a fourth episode of Austin Powers after religious leaders once again expressed concern and outrage.
Hindu leaders had previously expressed anxiety over the film's depiction of the faith and have once again attacked its tone and content. They claim it lampoons the religion and uses Hindu terms frivolously.
"I watched the trailer for the movie Love Guru and was shocked that any respectable movie producer would so blatantly ridicule a great world religion, a culture, spiritual path and sincere way of life, portraying it as farce," spiritual leader Swami Pooja Saraswati said.
Hindu and Indo-American leader Rajan Zed even called on Paramount Pictures to make changes to the storyline before the film's release. It is scheduled to open outside of the US in August and also stars Jessica Alba, Ben Kingsley and Justin Timberlake.
