It’s been 16 years since Mr. & Mrs. Smith introduced the world (and, uh, the people starring in it) to the chemistry between Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, creating a world of sexy spy shenanigans in which an apparently boring married couple found out they were actually two extremely cool and kickass secret agents. There have been a number of efforts to import, reboot, sequelize, or game-show-ify (!) the film’s success over the years, usually without bearing much fruit. But now there’s an exciting new development in the Mr. & Mrs. Smith-iverse, as Donald Glover appears to have just announced that he and Phoebe Waller-Bridge are going to be bringing the “franchise” (such as it is) to Amazon Video in the form of a television series next year.
Specifically, Glover posted a video to his Instagram Story today, showing him trading off dancing moves and sultry looks with (or maybe just at?) a corresponding video of Fleabag creator Waller-Bridge while Paul Anka’s “Put Your Head On My Shoulder” plays. All of which would just come off as some sort of weird social media stunt, except that it then cuts to a title card, announcing that the new Mr. + Mrs. Smith will feature “Donald Glover x Phoebe Waller-Bridge” and is being co-created by Fargo and Seven Seconds writer Francesca Sloane, with production by New Regency and Amazon.
Waller-Bridge and Glover previously collaborated (vocally, anyway), on Solo: A Star Wars Story, where Waller-Bridge played the sassy robotic assistant to Glover’s Lando Calrissian. She’s also got plenty of subtext-heavy spy media experience of her own, having masterminded the first season of Killing Eve before handing the show off to a series of new showrunners. Glover, meanwhile, has been relatively quiet for the last year; outside an appearance at a Community table read in 2020, his last credited role was his voice performance in the Lion King reboot. FX announced last September that he was expected to begin production on the third season of his critically acclaimed series Atlanta in the first half of 2021.
Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke confirmed the news on Twitter this afternoon. And honestly: We’d be lying if we weren’t intrigued to see Glover and Waller-Bridge play off each other again, even if the choice of property is a little strange.
Update, 6:25 p.m. 2/12/21: Amazon has now issued a press release about the series, filling in a few details, including the fact that Waller-Bridge and Glover will serve as executive producers with Sloane as showrunner, and that it will debut exclusively on Prime Video world-wide.