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.
