Can Phoebe-Waller Bridge and Donald Glover be Mr & Mrs Smith?
Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Donald Glover are two of the buzziest people in showbiz today — and now they’re rebooting a film overshadowed by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s affair.
It was always a fun premise — a husband and a wife, each living a double life, keeping secret from each other that they happen to be an assassin. Their marriage is fine, if a bit dreary, until the day they are ordered to take out each other. Better still, the 2005 film Mr & Mrs Smith would star Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt — epic box office draws, as well as being two of the industry’s most beautiful people.
On its release, Mr and Mrs Smith was panned by some critics for its mediocre script and repetitive action scenes. The film did receive some praise on its release for refreshing the espionage genre — embedding romance into the narrative, rather than the typical Bond-style treatment of simple sex served on the side.
But in a twist that would send any PR mogul in the entertainment industry into paroxysms of delight, a real life, on-set fling between the married Pitt and the somewhat feared, somewhat revered Jolie, would become Hollywood folklore.
Fans flocked to the cinema to ogle at the incubation of this reality-mimics-Hollywood moment, nudging Mr & Mrs Smith’s total box office earnings toward the $627 million mark.
It was the birth of Brangelina, as we came to know them.
Pitt left his wife, America’s sweetheart Jennifer Aniston. He and Jolie stayed together for 11 years, and they share six children between them. The pair’s divorce, which Jolie filed for in 2016, is reportedly ongoing.
The real life soap opera that underpinned Mr & Mrs Smith has rendered any remake or sequel almost untenable. Many have tried and fallen short — in 2007, an ABC pilot that continued the story wasn’t picked up to series. A 2010 reboot by American screenwriter Akiva Goldsman never materialised.
Now, two of the world’s most zeitgeisty show runners are going to give it a stab. Will they be the ones to get it right? And what, pray tell, is the appeal?
Over the weekend, it was announced that Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the British acting, writing and directing phenomenon behind the wildly popular show Fleabag and the new James Bond rewrite would be teaming up with Donald Glover, the visionary behind American comedy-drama series Atlanta (also very famous for releasing music as Childish Gambino) to bring a new Mr & Mrs Smith project to life. And it won’t be a film but a series.
The refresh will premiere on Amazon in 2022, and will be co-created by Francesca Sloane, a young writer known for her work on Emmy award-winning TV series Fargo.
Notably, Waller-Bridge penned the first season of Killing Eve, and there are interesting parallels between Mr & Mrs Smith and the series about a co-dependent assassin and British intelligence officer on opposite sides of the law.
In an announcement that was very on-brand for Waller-Bridge and Gambino, two people with insurmountable wit, the news of the series was broadcast in the form of two TikTok trend parodies. The first of which sees Glover dance to 24KGoldn’s track ‘Mood’, before we cut to Waller-Bridge doing the viral ‘silhouette challenge.’
Then the words ‘Mr + Mrs Smith’ show up on the screen, accompanied by ‘Donald Glover x Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Co-Created with Francesca Sloane, New Regency + Amazon Studios. Amazon Prime 2022.’
Later, Jennifer Salke, Head of Amazon Studios confirmed the news. “Talk about the dream team! Donald and Phoebe are two of the most talented creators and performers in the world,” said Salke in a statement. “Mr. and Mrs. Smith is an iconic property, and we can’t wait to see how Donald, Phoebe and Francesca make it their own.”
For the legion of Glover and Waller-Bridge fans, the announcement of Mr & Mrs Smith 2.0 is exciting. The stars are also executive producers and there’s a high degree of confidence that the pair will bring tenacity, nuance and nous to updating the 2005 version.
Like Jolie and Pitt their very names are enough to create fervour and anticipation. But unless a huge, 2021-sized curveball hatches during production, the pair won’t have what Jolie and Pitt had: the juicy subtext of a real life romance.
Glover has been married to his partner Michelle White since 2016, and the pair have three children. Waller-Bridge, meanwhile, is known to be dating British playwright Martin McDonagh (yes, Pitt was married too, although there were no kids in the mix).
So if we won’t be watching this Mr and Mrs Smith for the gossip, we’ll be watching it for the treat of seeing a pair of creatives with distinct voices — who also happen to be purveyors of whip-smart wisecracks — and a first-time-ever-on-screen dynamic.
Sixteen years on, a new generation will approach the story with fresh eyes.
After all, it was always a great premise.