Mike Myers once turned down a $20 million film built around Dieter, his pseudo-intellectual talk-show host character from Saturday Night Live, arguing publicly that he could not "cheat moviegoers" by making a film from a script he deemed unacceptable. The twist was that Myers himself had written that script, meaning he effectively torpedoed a project of his own creation and was promptly sued by Ron Howard's Imagine Entertainment for walking away from a deal he had already been paid handsomely for.

The fallout saw Myers countersue the production company, insisting he could not in good conscience accept the fee while delivering a film below standard. He ultimately avoided further legal action by agreeing to headline The Cat in the Hat for Universal Studios instead, a compromise film that, like much of his post-2000 output, failed to match the heights of Wayne's World, Austin Powers or Shrek.