20 Movies Way More Successful Than Anyone Expected
13. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Though Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery was a firm success - making $67.7 million against an $18 million budget - it was by no means a barnstorming breakout.
While many attributed the film's underwhelming UK performance to the death of Princess Diana five days prior, few expected sequel Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me to blow up quite how it did.
Even accepting that the first film performed extremely well on home video, nobody saw the sequel's final $312 million haul coming - more than 4.5x the global gross of its predecessor.
To be clear, the second film's opening weekend surpassed the total gross of the original, and made it the biggest opening ever for a comedy film at the time.
Austin Powers had well and truly become a pop-culture icon, then, and while threequel Austin Powers in Goldmember didn't quite match this level of success, it still made off with a strong $296.9 million.
Mike Myers has consistently talked up the prospect of a fourth film, though it's tough to imagine it enjoying the same level of success, no matter its quality.