Hollywood adores a remake, whether it’s a couple of decades old or merely about to scratch that magical 10-year mark, there’s always the possibility of revisiting a property in the hopes of some new eyeballs. It rarely works out that way, or at least, as well as the people in charge would hope, but that doesn’t stop every channel, studio, or streaming outfit from trying their luck. “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” is a film that’s had two different reboot or remake attempts since hitting screens back in 2005, and one of those efforts didn’t even make it to air. Jordana Brewster and Martin Henderson tried their best to elevate “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” nearly 20 years ago, but maybe the darker action comedy was still a bit ahead of its time for television. Now, that effort lives on a genuine curiosity that functions more as a Wikipedia-style footnote than anything immediately memorable.
“Mr. & Mrs. Smith” took the big screen by storm in 2005, itself a secret reboot from a 1996 CBS show, with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie working opposite each other. The movie ended up being the seventh-highest-grossing film of that year in theaters. So, when you see a whopping $487 million box office on the board, it’s clear someone was going to try and follow it up in some regard. Jolie and Pitt actually were down for a sequel after that dazzling success, but creatives couldn’t quite parse out a story that worked for both of them. As a result, the property would lie dormant for a few months until someone had the bright idea to bring “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” to the small screen, and the networks were eager to capitalize on that momentum.
In 2007, Doug Liman and Simon Kinberg would be reunited by their quest to have lightning strike twice with “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” as ABC greenlit a sequel project based on the popular film. Regency TV helped produce the pilot after ABC failed to get traction on its own script for over a year before calling in reinforcements. Unfortunately, the new version of “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” would hit a few snags in the road early in development, with Kinberg and Liman both juggling the TV project alongside their work on “Jumper,” which would obviously be a priority for the duo. But that quirk of development is something a lot of projects face, and there was more going on with ABC’s programming lineups that would hamstring things further.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith had a sequel series pilot filmed in 2007 starring Jordana Brewster
As soon as “Jumper” wrapped filming, the writing and directing duo got to work on “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” and at first, the creative team sounded very optimistic about the development. As Kinberg told Variety, the new show would be like, “‘Married … With Children’ with guns.” He would explain, “The show takes all the marital issues a couple has and blows them up to action-genre size.” Now, successful primetime shows off all stripes have been built on shakier conceits than that, but the original “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” reads as a bit more upscale than that concept. For what it’s worth, the original pilot lives up to that billing with a lot of the warmth between the couple sanded down. A quick search online can show you what I mean if you know your way around the old hyperspace highway and don’t care about watching leaked material.
Jordana Brewster and Martin Henderson were down to give it all a try, but the initial reception from ABC wasn’t great, so the network chose not to pursue “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” despite the time and money that had been sunk into its development. It’s hard to blame the “Fast and Furious Saga” star for any of this, or her co-star, as these projects don’t often shake out. Despite this setback, Brewster told Collider’s Ladies Night that not getting picked up by ABC was a needed reality check, as a lot of young performers need to discover they don’t have everything figured out and are going to have to grind for it.
“We had all the elements for success, and yet ABC didn’t pick it up. And I think it was the tone that was wrong,” Brewster began. “I think also I was in a phase of my career where – I now go to class every week, I now have an acting coach that I will defer to for everything. I will work on something endlessly,” she admitted. “I think back then, I was probably like 24, 25, so I was like, ‘I have this whole thing figured out.’ Actually I think that was an important road bump because it taught me, ‘Girl, you’ve gotta get to work. You don’t have it all figured out.’ And so it was a nice kick in the ass I think, ultimately.”
Mr. & Mrs. Smith’s first sequel attempt didn’t work out, but the second one was great
The “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” concept was pretty much on ice until a few years ago, when Donald Glover and Phoebe Waller-Bridge were attached to a new version of the story for Prime Video. Much like that first TV effort, this adaptation of the story ran into some hurdles too, with Waller-Bridge stepping away from the project and Maya Erskine subbing in for the actress alongside Glover. The results in 2024 were more well-regarded than the first TV “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” and in fact, there are still viewers wondering if we’ll ever see a season 2 of that show because of both actors’ busy schedules, a hysterical twist on what made the show so hard to make the first time around.
If there is a lesson here, it’s the fact that a durable concept will usually find its way to air somehow amidst the confusing production cycle of Hollywood. Yes, there might be a 3-4 year span where fans will basically give up hope that a show or movie will ever see the light of day, but in such an uncertain environment for TV and movies, studios and streamers are betting on more established IP stories than ever. So, if you’re patient enough, a good idea will randomly come back around like a boomerang and prove why it was such a great success the first time around. In that way, TV kind of works like your local bus routes; it might not be on time every single time you’re at the stop, but they’re not going to miss you if you’re sitting there waiting to hop on for a trip down memory lane.
