Netflix’s ‘Pentaverate’ Bombed Because Mike Myers Was Never A Star

It was not a good week for Netflix’s English-language television, as season four of Ozark (102 million hours) and season one of Ozark (13.4 million hours) made up almost as much as the rest of the top ten (125 million hours) combined. Oh well, likewise, the movie section was mostly made up of 365 Days: This Day (27.5 million hours), the first blockbuster 365 from back in summer 2020 (6.3 million hours) and a slew of Hollywood theatricals (Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog, Sony’s Men in Black International, STX’s The Gentlemen, Warner Bros.’ U.S. Marshalls) that again reminds us how much Netflix relies on third-party content to which may eventually not have access as their streaming competition takes back their homegrown content. Intriguingly enough, nowhere to be found on the English-language television list was Mike Myers’ The Pentaverate.

The show represents two of Netflix’s biggest Achilles heels. First, it’s a television show, compromised of six 25-35 minute episodes, that absolutely could have been a 105-minute movie. The redundancy of its plotting and the sheer bloat isn’t that different from the deluge of streaming shows based on true crime stories and/or real-life tech scandals that have become all the rage, as such “like a six-hour movie” offerings have replaced the 135-minute, adult-skewing studio programmer. That’s especially true for the actors (Amanda Seyfried, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Nicole Kidman, etc.) who want a middle ground between cheap indie films and something other than a supporting role in the MCU. That Netflix and Shonda Rhomes’ Inventing Anna is seemingly the only one that general audiences watched, all due respect to Hulu’s dynamite The Dropout, speaks to another Netflix issue.

While Netflix has gotten its money’s worth, relatively speaking, with the mega-bucks deals handed out to Shonda Rhimes (Inventing Anna, Bridgerton), they’ve found less rate-of-return value in terms of viewership and buzz for the other dump-trucks of cash offered up to Ryan Murphy and Kenya Barris. Moreover, their strategy of throwing money at once-popular comic celebrities and hoping for an Adam Sandler-sized return hasn’t quite worked out. While The Pentaverate isn’t aggressively worse than any number “should have been a movie” comedies like The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window (a Zucker Abrams Zucker-style spoof of Lifetime melodramas that took an 88-minute movie and stretched it out to eight half-hour episodes), it does represent Netflix mistaking awareness for interest. Myers, talent aside, has not been popular for at least twenty years.

The Pentaverate, about a secret society that bends world events to their will, with the catch being that they aren’t explicitly evil, features Myers playing almost every character we see on screen, give or take good-sport turns from Lydia West, Keegan-Michael Key (who is seemingly incapable of giving an insincere performance) and Ken Jeong. It’s not terribly funny and not exceptionally pointed in its media satire, but it’s halfway enjoyable if you watch it while doing chores or playing on your phone. I laughed out loud each time at Jeremy Irons’ opening credit narration for reasons that will become obvious at the start of the second episode. Like too many big-ticket Netflix items, it seems to exist mostly the bragging rights of having snagged a famous actor or filmmaker.

However, in terms of pop culture impact, Myers hasn’t been a draw outside of his marquee franchises (Austin Powers from 1997 to 2002) and Shrek (from 2001 to 2010) since, well, even Wayne’s World 2 bombed ($47 million) in December 1993. That’s not a quality judgment, but the success of the first Wayne’s World ($183 million in early 1992) didn’t make So, I Married An Axe Murderer into a hit ($11.5 million) in summer 1993. Nor did the overwhelming success of the Austin Powers franchise ($677 million on a combined $116 million budget) or the Shrek movies ($2.99 billion/$445 million) convince folks to show up for The Love Guru ($40 million/$62 million budget) in the summer of 2008. Both star-driven, high-concept comedy originals bombed theatrically back when star power mattered and audiences showed up for original high-concept theatrical comedies.

The Cat in the Hat, an attempt to mimic Jim Carrey’s The Grinch, earned $133 million global on a $109 million budget in November of 2003. Mike Myers, again an incredibly gifted comedian whose Austin Powers became the rare spoof that (for a time) equaled the genuine article (007 movies) in the pop culture zeitgeist, wasn’t so much a butts-in-seats draw as a comic actor who occasionally headlined winning character-centric franchises. Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery gave false hope to 25 years worth of failed franchises, but it was absolutely a theatrical hit grossing $67 million worldwide on a $15 million budget before becoming a big-deal VHS/DVD title. However, the movie opened with $9.7 million in early May of 1997 but legged out because it was good and because word-of-mouth spread accordingly.

Wayne’s World, at least the first one (even if I think the sequel is every bit as good), opened big ($17 million in February of 1992) because it was a feature-length adaptation of an existing and popular Saturday Night Live sketch. Outside that branded awareness/interest, Myers’ live-action theatrical output was mostly flops with the singular “got lucky because it was ridiculously good and was the last halfway decent breakout comedy in theaters (all due respect to the underrated Trial and Error) until My Best Friend’s Wedding in mid-June” Austin Powers. This isn’t a novel concept. Vin Diesel is barely a draw outside of The Fast Saga. Sylvester Stallone is mostly only a star in Rocky and Rambo movies. And Mike Myers was only a star for his three breakout franchises.

That’s not nothing, but Netflix giving Myers “do whatever you want” money with the hoped-for buzz of the comedian’s first live-action project in 14 years is a classic example of mistaking the specific (audiences like certain movies featuring Mike Myers) for the abstract (audiences like Mike Myers movies). At least until falling stock prices and Wall Street’s realization that the streaming industry was never going to be an “every egg in one basket” industry forced changes, Netflix could afford to throw blank checks at “the next Mike Myers show” or “the next Judd Apatow movie” no matter the eventual viewership of their respective projects. If I were Myers, I would have taken the money too. The deal and its inevitable outcome is another example of the great disrupter making the same mistake as its Hollywood competition.