Mike Myers' Post-"Dieter" Project

Mon., Oct. 30, 2000 12:25 PM PST by Josh Grossberg

After having his career temporarily derailed by a nasty little legal battle, Mike Myers is headed for the boonies.

The Austin Powers star is in final talks to star opposite Anne Heche and Helen Hunt in Timepiece, a $20 million comedy produced by Interlight Pictures in association with Hunt's Hunt/Tavel Productions, according to Daily Variety.

Details are still sketchy, but Myers would reportedly play a director shooting a documentary about a woman (Heche) from a laid-back country town who takes on city slickers and the dictatorial powers-that-be from a nearby metropolis.

Myers is also mulling a $20 million deal to reprise the Peter Sellers role of Inspector Clouseau in MGM's Pink Panther remake, which is being produced by Ivan Reitman. (Kevin Spacey was previously offered the part, but he turned it down.) While Panther would represent Myers' biggest payday yet, he seems less likely to do that project first.

If, as expected, Myers does segue into Timepiece, the movie would mark the first starring role for the comedian since he said auf wiedersen to Dieter, his ill-fated Saturday Night Live "Sprockets" spinoff about the existentialist German talk show host and his pet monkey.

Last June, Myers walked away from a $20 million-plus deal to write and star in Dieter, claiming the script still needed major retooling despite his writing 14 different versions of the script over the last two years.

After pulling the plug, he was promptly sued by the film's studio, Universal, for breach of contract, after the studio said it had kicked in millions developing the project and signing a supporting cast that included David Hasselhoff, Will Ferrell and Jack Black.

Imagine Entertainment, the production company behind the project, then launched its own $30 million lawsuit against Myers. The funnyman fired back with a countersuit, claiming among other things that the studio hired detectives to spy on him and his wife.

But thanks to the mediation of DreamWorks honchos Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg (Myers is lending his voice to the upcoming animated DreamWorks flick Shrek), the two sides were able to work out a settlement.

While Myers has been feuding off-screen, Hunt has had a busy year in front of the camera, starring in such diverse films as Robert Altman's Dr. T and the Women, Pay it Forward opposite Kevin Spacey, and the upcoming What Women Want with Mel Gibson. She also made her share of headlines with her divorce from actor-hubby Hank Azaria after only one year of marriage.

Completing Timepiece's troubled troika, is Heche, who, after splitting with longtime steady Ellen DeGeneres , was found wandering half-naked and semi-coherent in Fresno, California, and was briefly hospitalized.

If the producers at Interlight manage to keep their actors together, Timepiece should begin shooting in February.