In the Mr. And Mrs. Smith teaser, Donald Glover and Maya Erskine aren’t in it for romance
Mr. And Mrs. Smith, starring Donald Glover and Maya Erskine, premieres on Prime Video on February 2
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It can be argued that Mr. And Mrs. Smith was an unremarkable movie made remarkable by the scorching sexual tension between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. So what’s remarkable about Mr. And Mrs. Smith the show (premiering February 2 on Prime Video) is that it’s not leaning into the sexual tension at all. Not that there’s zero chemistry between Donald Glover and Maya Erskine. It’s just that the movie was about a couple learning to be spies together, whereas the show is about spies learning to be a couple together.
The new teaser trailer is not lacking for sexy, romantic mood music, but John (Glover) and Jane (Erskine) themselves are pretty awkward. They start off with classic first date small talk like, “This your first time in New York?” and “Have you ever killed anyone?” and progress to fielding awkward questions like “How’s the intimacy between the two of you?” “I should be clear, I’m not in this for the romance,” Jane warns. But Jane, what if we’re in it for the romance?
“In this version of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, two lonely strangers land jobs working for a mysterious spy agency that offers them a glorious life of espionage, wealth, world travel, and a dream brownstone in Manhattan,” reads a synopsis from Prime Video. “The catch? New identities in an arranged marriage as Mr. and Mrs. John and Jane Smith. Now hitched, John and Jane navigate a high-risk mission every week while also facing a new relationship milestone. Their complex cover story becomes even more complicated when they catch real feelings for each other. What’s riskier: espionage or marriage?”
The trailer is also not lacking for impressive guest stars, including Sarah Paulson, Paul Dano, Parker Posey, John Turturro, and Ron Perlman. Other buzzy guest stars joining the cast include Michaela Coel, Alexander Skarsgård, Eiza Gonzalez, Sharon Horgan, Ursula Corbero, Wagner Moura, and Billy Campbell.
The series was originally supposed to star Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who was developing the property alongside Glover at the start but left the project over creative differences. Erskine was brought on board for a version that is intentionally less sexed up than the film. “You get your cake and you get to eat it too, because you get the explosions, the chases, the fight scenes and the sex, but you also get to see the nuances of a relationship, with the fart jokes and what it’s like to live with somebody and be annoyed by their mouth noises after being together for six months,” as she put it in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.
“While we do have iconic travel and really glamorous shoot-’em-ups and whatnot, the essence of the show is, at one point, a character running home after chasing bad guys all day and taking their shoe off and actually seeing a blister because they wore the wrong shoes,” said co-creator Francesca Sloane. “We’re humanizing them. We want to know exactly what a spy does when they have to go to the bathroom. That’s the thesis of the show.”
Mr. & Mrs. Smith will be available to stream February 2 on Prime Video.
71 Comments
Everything old is new again its 1996 again!
Finally someone who knew, unlike the blog that supposed to know about AUDIO & VIDEO. The plot also seem a copy paste from the 1996 series instead of the movie.
This comment section is full of people upset that they abandoned the plot of the movie they love, unaware that the movie they love abandoned the plot of the TV series someone else loved and this TV series is faithfully returning back to the original plot of the TV series someone else loved.
i know ‘who is this for?’ is an inelegant, kind of incorrect way of phrasing the questions…but who is this for?there are at least 3 shows airing about couples-as-spies, one of which is already an adaptation of a movie (true lies). i’m not sure how ‘good’ any of them are, but surely if this is your wheelhouse is ANOTHER one isn’t going to move the needle.as fan of atlanta, i guess i’m morbidly curious enough to see what glover is up to with an unlimited budget…but a mr and mrs smith remake? in 2024? what are we doing?
Does anyone know the True Lies show even exists? Was it cancelled? What are the other shows you’re referring to?
citadel is the other one, the most expensive tv show ever made haha. i believe it even airs on the same service.
“i believe it even airs on the same service.”
WHOA, really? That’s fucking CRAZY!!!!!!
Never, in the history of TV has a network ever had more than one programme in the same genre, so this is bordering on unbelievable!!!
Oh, is that the Russo show? Another show I heard briefly mentioned once and never again.
I didn’t know a True Lies show even existed, but one of the first results when I looked it up was that CBS already cancelled it.
I’m shocked!
If I check it out, it’ll be because I really like Glover’s work (and Erskine’s, but I’m less familiar with her oeuvre). I’m guessing a lot of the audience will start in the same boat, and if it gets good reviews, maybe pick up some steam by word-of-mouth (which is how a lot of these types of streaming shows seem to do it).
There’s a TV version of True Lies? Since when?
Donald Glover saw the M&MS movie and … jettisoned most of it for this show. It’s not faithful to that material. I trust Glover working on any scale, small or epic. Much more so than the Russos (whom Glover worked with in the Community days) who have really lost their way creatively. I’m expecting this will be a rare high budget streaming show that doesn’t go off the rails.
The cast is the only reason I’d consider this. Otherwise, yeah, I couldn’t be bothered. Donald Glover and Maya Erskine is at least interesting if nothing else about it is.
it’s interesting in a madlibs sort of way, for sure.
“Who is this for?”People who like quirky romcoms, dark comedy, work dramas, Maya Erskine, or Donald Glover probably.This is basically, “I can think of 180 jokes an hour. I can make people laugh at 180 jokes an hour. Also, I want to make a spy show.” And that’s it.The cynicism of, “Which four quadrant marketing construct is this intended to target?” is no less cynical when it comes from a comment section.
you don’t see the show itself as a cynical 4 quadrant construct?
I don’t see why it wouldn’t move the needle if it actually was good considering all those other shows got abysmal reviews and reception. glover and erskine are also both just great actors/writers in their own right and their chemistry is pretty palpable, I’d say. not saying it won’t be another empty calorie content burger, but there is exciting talent here that isn’t really present with those other projects you listed.
“if this is your wheelhouse is ANOTHER one isn’t going to move the needle”Mr. and Mrs. Smith (show) and True Lies (show) and Mr. and Mrs. Smith (movie) and True Lies (movie) are the same in the sense that Star Wars and Star Trek and The Expanse and For All Mankind are the same.
Loved the movie, but couldn’t possibly give a shit about this.
It might be good, but hard to fill the shoes belonging to Phillip and Elizabeth Jennings…
Those weren’t even their shoes!
Tangentially related, I’m really disappointed by the complete series collection available in the U.S. It’s DVD and the packaging is bare-bones. I still bought it on sale but the show deserves better.
Is the music the same on the DVDs as it was when the eps aired? I’ve noticed sometimes for cost-cutting purposes they’ll replace songs when they sell the video/streaming versions. That would be tragic for the Americans.
Every song played in the show is replaced with Toni Basil’s “Mickey.”
…which you’d expect to detract from the experience, but it’s actually quite the opposite.
Yeah, it actually works out fine. It works out so fine, it blows my mind.
I’ll be honest, I just got the set like the day before I posted so I hadn’t started watching. Having now made it through a chunk of the first season so far it seems like the music is intact. Which actually may go some way towards explaining why DVD and why the packaging is so lame. They might have done the calculus and figured it was better to retain the music licensing and go cheap on packaging and discs.
Update: I just got into the second season and the music is still intact but the image transfer is ass. Like genuinely terrible, I don’t know wtf happened. Thankfully it seems like the second season is the only one that suffers this problem. I thought maybe it was just the first disc but every S2 disc is bad. I threw in the first discs for S3 and S4 and those were fine. It’s bad enough that I just decided to keep watching S2 on Hulu.That said, you asking about the music got me on a rewatch, so kudos!
haha! Damn, now your recounting of the rewatch is making ME want to rewatch! Honestly, the thing that’s kept me from rewatching is that i never, ever want to see (or more accurately, HEAR) that suitcase-stuffing scene again…
As a horror hound that scene is one of my favorites.I do cringe through the whole thing, though.
I mean, as much as I love The Americans (favorite TV show of all time, Serious Drama division), M&MS isn’t even the same genre.
The cast for this is too good to not earn somewhat high expectations. But they’re going to have to work hard to avoid The Americans comparisons, and that’s a huge shadow to be living in.
“But they’re going to have to work hard to avoid The Americans comparisons”
Why is it that you think fans of The Americans are fucking stupid?
So, it’s the exact opposite plot of Mr. & Mrs. Smith,…so why did they use the title?
Same reason the World War Z movie has almost nothing in common with the World War Z book, name recognition.
World War Z was a bestselling novel that was pretty contemporaneous with the movie. Mr. and Mrs. Smith was the 9th highest grossing movie of 2005, nearly 20 years ago. What name recognition?
I’d argue that most people over age 30 remember the 2005 film as being a big hit starring Pitt and Jolie. I’m not sure really how one could argue that they didn’t reuse the existing IP for that reason. The name alone practically guarantees a built-in audience. See also: Charlie’s Angels, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Fargo, and a hundred other examples.
An accurate adaptation of World War Z would be so much more entertaining. Todd Wanio’s tales, the feral redhead’s chilling-ass recounting of her parents deaths, the Chinese sub…any ONE of those stories would have made a better movie than whatever bullshit Brad Pitt produced.
Some day (I dream) HBO will do a proper WWZ mini series. But I actually really like the WWZ movie even if it’s not a good adaptation of the book.
Sigh….I have had dreams about a WWZ series.Just take chapters and make the episodes. Do it like a real documentary and intersperse the talking heads over pictures, news reports, etc. My real want is in today’s time with every house/business/etc sporting home security to use those types of things for ‘found footage’ among it – imagine being able to see the slow rolling tide and desperate battle of Yonkers from everything from Nest doorbell cameras to the corner Safeway or Bodega’s CCTV cameras to their landwarrior coms to drone cameras. It would be chilling.
It would be light years better than Walking Dead, and hopefully less exhausting. I just started reading it again an hour ago and it’s so fucking good! Like I said, Todd Wanio’s stories would be so cool to watch, the tiger squares or whatever they called them, blasting Iron Maiden…
The outbreak in the Chinese village probably should change for obvious reasons, in my opinion.
I had seen WWZ movie and then had absolutely no interest in reading the book (and was getting a bit burnt out on zombie stuff at that time anyway)— until someone whose opinion I trust told me that the movie is almost entirely unrelated to the book AND that the book was unlike any other zombie book. They weren’t wrong.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith was a movie adaptation of a failed TV series called Mr. & Mrs. Smith from a decade earlier. The movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith is the opposite plot of the TV series Mr. & Mrs. Smith. This is a faithful reboot of the TV series Mr. & Mrs. Smith, not an adaptation of the movie adapted from the TV series Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
The chemistry between Pitt and Jolie is undeniably a huge reason for its success. But don’t discount some really fun action choreography. Like REALLY fun. It’s the primary reason I enjoy it. The chemistry of those actors in those characters having those fights, both with each other and with goons, is a fantastic mix.
i think it all boils down to doug liman being quite good. he brought the correct energy. also, aside from pitt/jolie, vince vaughn is GREAT in it.
I won’t take anything away from the performance because yes, Vaughn kills it in that role. BUT. I take a lot less enjoyment from his bits knowing now that he’s a fucking gun guy. It adds context to the character that I wish I didn’t have.
but the guns in the movie didn’t bother you?
No. Guns in movies don’t bother me. I’m a John Woo fan. I love the Mariachi Trilogy and the first Matrix (and many of the shootouts in the sequels). I may be one of like a dozen or so people who like Last Man Standing, the Western Yojimbo adaptation starring Bruce Willis. I play a LOT of video games full of guns and gunplay. Fake and fantasy guns are totally fine. REAL guns? And the people who think they solve REAL problems? Not so much. The fact that Vince Vaughn thinks that school teachers should be trained in and carry a firearm is fucking bananas. And thus my enjoyment of his performance as an operative with lots of gun access in Mr. and Mrs. Smith is tainted.I also deeply love, like LOVE, Conan the Barbarian. But John Milius is a fascist piece of shit. He still knows how to make an awesome swords and sandals flick. (And TV show. Rome is immaculate.)
Excited to see Erskine in something else, but it’s bumming me out how long it’s taking PWB to make something of her own, following Fleabag. And a potential meeting of the minds with her and Glover was intriguing. But Erskine is literally one of the few other creators who’s made a truly unique series in the last few years.
i hate hate these streamers give so much money so these young upstart creatives that they aren’t allowed to do anything interesting anymore BECAUSE they spent so much money on them.i like PWB a lot, but a tomb raider show from her is about the most boring thing i can think of. just like how a ‘mr and mrs smith’ show from glover is boring.
“i like PWB a lot”
Not enough to respect her decisions though, I see.
It’s less that she can’t do anything she wants than it’s that she can do whatever she wants — and some of it is corporate schlock for a broad audience. If someone offered me a writing gig on Fallout, I wouldn’t sit here and bemoan how I don’t get to write original content. I’d be making a show in a universe I fell in love with in middle school that started with a single demo disk I replayed fifty times.Some creators are true believers. Hell, Mr. and Mrs. Smith was a show I WATCHED ON TELEVISION starring two of my favorite actors that died in the crib. I literally thought I was the only person who loved that show, but Donald Glover is rebooting the TV show while people scratch their heads wondering who in their right mind is remaking the movie based on the TV show that completely threw out the premise of the TV show.
look if pwb has been waiting her whole life to make a tomb raider show then i’m happy for her. i get the impression amazon threw a list of ips at her and told her to pick one.
PWB hasn’t exactly not been working. Between Killing Eve and Indiana Jones, she’s been doing plenty.
But that’s my point. KE was nearly 6 years ago. And, all due respect, she was just an actor on IJ, not a creative lead. And and, as mentioned in the other comment, her next endeavor is just more boring IP. My point isn’t that these creatives aren’t working — it’s that once they get in the zeitgeist they almost never return to singular original work because the IP money is so immense and difficult to refuse.
The last season of Killing Eve was last year.
She left after season 1, which aired in 2018. Since then she’s had no creative input (I believe each season had a different creative lead). And it showed.
Even with the stellar cast (minus Glover, who consistently gives me the ick) this looks like rehashed ass. Hard pass.
Because if there’s one thing America needs these days, it’s even more media about how silly, zany, delightful, glamorous, and all around sexy-cool gun murder is??
Hey, as long as Maya doesn’t get her tits out it’s morally fine.
Why do people always remake good movies? This is the perfect movie to remake – one that is universally agreed to have a pretty good premise, but bad-to-middling reviews.It does seem like they swap the premise around, but lets be honest, its still pretty much the same idea.
Why is it that every time I see Donald Glover in something, my first thought is “I can’t believe he’s in this”? He’s somehow created this weird persona where he’s this multi-hyphenate auteur and “regular” acting gigs seem somehow beneath him now. (Though I guess the fact that Phoebe Waller-Bridge was supposed to be in this and left over creative differences with Glover kinda supports my view)
Had it actually been Glover and Waller-Bridge, I would have watched nothing else ever again. Thankfully, she left so that I can watch other shows.
So “The Americans” but less interesting.
M&MS the movie was an above average film, but the Pitt/Jolie stuff is what really sold it at the time. But part of what made it an above average film was its sort of commentary on marriage. This couple was lying to each other and were miserable about it. When they opened up about it to each other and started working as a team – it turned out they were pretty good. Its ham fisted, but open communication in a relationship really matters. The fight scenes at IKEA and in the minivan were pretty fun, if on the nose, action sequences too about navigating the minefield of marriage or whatever.This series appears to sort of lose that by making them spies on the same team put into an arranged marriage. It would be interesting (and I imagine this will happen) if it turns out their agency betrays them or, more interesting, one person is more into the mission or relationship than the other, forcing some hard choices. I haven’t see the Americans (its in my queue!) but I am under the impression that in later seasons that is at least part of the tension there. But if its just two spies in an arranged marriage? Less interested, though I like Glover and Erskine a lot.Also, I really want Danny Pudi and Anna Konkle to show up in some capacity. Troy and Abed doing misssssssions!
I don’t get all the The Americans comparisons. This seems to have a much lighter tone than that show. Looks pretty good.
If you’re Gen Z or a late millenial, you were a teen or in your 20’s by the time you started watching The Americans and probably weren’t aware the concept was done twice already and called Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Recency bias leads to the inevitable consequence that the thing you really like that shares a thing with a thing done twice before it and being done again sounds like it’s cribbing from the thing that shows up in the middle of all of the things you haven’t heard of or watched.The Americans is also based on a true story, so that’s another layer of separation that should make it clear this is not the thing.
There are obvious differences between the two but “don’t get”? C’mon. The parallels are ALSO pretty obvious.
We’re out of ideas alert! We’re out of ideas alert!
“the essence of the show is, at one point, a character running home after chasing bad guys all day and taking their shoe off and actually seeing a blister because they wore the wrong shoes”If this is the example they think will sell the show in the press, that’s not a great sign.