Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and over $67 million worldwide. The film spawned two sequels, "" (1999) and "Austin Powers in Goldmember" (2002), with Myers repeatedly mentioning the possibility of a fourth film over the years (as of 2018). In 1967, British spy Austin Powers thwarts an assassination attempt by his nemesis Dr. Evil in a London nightclub. Dr. Evil escapes in a space rocket and cryogenically freezes himself. Powers volunteers to be placed into cryostasis in case Dr. Evil returns in the future. Thirty years later, in 1997, Dr. Evil returns to discover his henchman Number 2 has developed Virtucon, the legitimate front of
Austin Motor Company and the Morris version outsold its Austin twin, so the Austin's name was changed to Mini to follow suit. In 1970, British Leyland dropped the separate Austin and Morris branding of the Mini, and it was subsequently simply "Mini", under the Austin Morris division of BLMC. The principle of a transverse engine with gearbox in the sump and driving the front wheels was applied to larger cars, beginning with the 1100 of 1963, (although the Morris-badged version was launched 13 months earlier than the Austin, in August 1962), the 1800 of 1964 and the Maxi of 1969. This meant that