He’s still working at being king of the movie hill

Like other writer-directors who live in Austin, Texas -- Terrence Malick and Robert Rodriguez, for whom he played a villain in “Spy Kids 2” -- Mike Judge tries to work in the studio system while remaining geographically detached from it.

Judge’s 1999 film “Office Space” hit with a thud at the box office. But the movie is now held up as a deft satire of office drones, who, in “Office Space,” work at a faceless, downsizing, high-tech company. Today, “Office Space” often airs on cable and is beloved among video store clerks.

After “Office Space,” Judge said, “there was a movie I was going to produce, a small movie, that eventually fell apart.” With fellow “King of the Hill” writers Greg Daniels and Jim Dauterive, Judge made a pilot for Fox two seasons ago called “Monsignor Martinez,” about an excommunicated priest who breaks with the Catholic Church in his corrupt village over the turn the other cheek issue and ends up chasing down a drug lord in San Diego.

A sequel to his animated feature “Beavis and Butt-head Do America” is on hold, said Judge, who has also been doing battle with MTV over a DVD compilation of the series “Beavis and Butt-head.” MTV, Judge said, put out the compilation without consulting him.