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Pseudo Mr. & Mrs. Smith Prequel On the Way Without Pitt/Jolie

by Ethan Anderton
February 8, 2010
Source: Vulture

And we're back again with our (at least) daily announcement of a reboot, sequel, prequel; this time word comes from NY Mag's Vulture that Fox's Regency Enterprises is moving forward with Mr. & Mrs. Jones, a pseudo-prequel to the 2005 action comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith which spawned the paparazzi's even more intense obsession with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. However, the flash to the past will not feature Pitt and Jolie, but rather is sort of an origin story of a similar but differently named couple, showing how a pair of twenty-something spies are set up as a fake married couple when they graduate agency training. How fun.

As much as I enjoyed Mr. & Mrs. Smith, this feels cheap to me. Mr. and Mrs. Smith didn't know they were spies when they were married, so that added a decent level of comedy to the fun action. All this concept does is set up a fake marriage between spies, likely with the idea that they'll really fall in love, but have marriage problems while working undercover. Seems like a lot of the potential for some humor is already going to be covered by Tina Fey and Steve Carell in Date Night, the only difference being trained spies vs. innocent civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time. Of course there's the chance it could turn out all right (mostly dependent on who they actually cast in the project), but I can't help but find more than the intended similarities between this concept and Vulture's reference to Dumb & Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd.

Obviously, the real motivator here is money, and not only making it, but spending less of it to get this made. A real sequel bringing back Pitt and Jolie with lots of expensive action would be quite the costly endeavor. But you'd think with as much as the studios love to bank on safe tentpoles that will draw in a crowd, Mr. & Mrs. Smith (which raked in $478 million worldwide) with Jolie and Pitt would be well worth the cost. But this is just another in Hollywood's trend of extending familiar titles, without all the expensive familiar faces, for better or worse. Stay tuned to see who will be playing Mr. and Mrs. Jones in this. Anyone interested?

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