Johnny English Hasn't Lost His Touch

The sequel whose very existence baffles America (where the original made only a small fraction of its $160 million worldwide cume) has proven that there's still an appetite (overseas, anyway) for Rowan Atkinson's bumbling secret agent, Johnny English—even eight years later. Deadline reports that the belated spy spoof sequel Johnny English Reborn opened to an impressive $11.7 million in fifteen territories overseas (and opening at number one in 13 of them), making it the biggest opening of any Rowan Atkinson movie to date. The trade blog estimates that that opening puts the sequel "on track to do north of $150 million overseas." And it hasn't even opened in the UK yet, where Atkinson is huge. (That happens on October 7.) I'm glad to hear that, and looking forward to seeing the movie when it comes out in the US on October 28; I loved the first one. As spy spoofs go, it may not rank up there with the OSS 117 movies, but it's a far cry better than the Austin Powers sequels. And the makers of Johnny English clearly understood what made the Peter Sellers Pink Panther movies work better than the makers of the Steve Martin attempts! The original Johnny English was a better Pink Panther movie than either of those. I hope the sequel lives up to it.