Mike Myers Talks ‘The Pentaverate’ and Lorne Michaels’ Failed Movie Pitch at Netflix Is a Joke Fest

variety.com:

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticMike Myers has a new show, “The Pentaverate,” premiering at midnight on Netflix, but reviews are nowhere to be found.

At the as-self-serving-as-it-sounds Netflix Is a Joke comedy festival — 40 minutes of not-even-remotely-funny promos for Netflix comedy shows, followed by a mutual-adoration session between Myers and director David O.

Russell — the streamer premiered the six-part series for fans, but not for press.Maybe it’s brilliant. At his best, Myers certainly can be, having given the world such iconic comedy characters as Wayne Campbell, Austin Powers, Dieter, Dr.

Evil and Shrek. Asked by Russell to describe the idea that inspired the new show, Myers flashed back to his 1993 feature “So I Married an Axe Murderer,” in which he played both main character Charlie Mackenzie and his dad, a cuckoo conspiracy nut who ranted about a secret society of the five wealthiest people in the world who run everything. “In the last six years, just seeing the rise of all the weird conspiracy theories and the devaluation of fact, the rise of alternative fact, I thought, ‘What if there was a secret society of five people that ran the world, but what if they were nice?’” Myers told the crowd. “Things can be shitty, but what if they had been way shittier if this group of…” and here he lowered his voice, “white men had not been there since the Black Plague?”As pitches for TV series go, that hardly sounds like a winner, but hey, Netflix gets to work with Mike Myers, and Myers’ fans get eight new characters to amuse them, ranging from a naive Canadian TV reporter to Shep Gordon, the legendary talent agent about whom Myers made the 2013 doc “Supermensch.”“In Canada, we know our TV isn’t as good.